A former soldier who had been convicted of manslaughter in 1996, yesterday shot his neighbour before turning the gun on himself and ending his life with a single bullet to the head.
In a rage that family members and neighbours said was caused by his drunken stupor, Samuel La Fleur of Lot 192 Back Street, Prospect, East Bank Demerara, at around 2:30pm yesterday, ventured into his neighbour’s yard to settle a dispute he had with a member of that family.
During the ordeal which lasted for about five minutes, he shot and injured sales clerk Onika Little then went back into his home and killed himself by firing one bullet into his head. He obtained the gun after he wrestled it from one of his cousins – a policeman stationed at the Grove Police Station who was home at the time for lunch.
“He run in the yard with a gun calling for Curtis to come out and my family peep over the verandah and tell he that Curtis ain’t home and he say is lie and start firing shots at the house…a bullet hit my niece… and he run back home and blam! We hear he shoot heself,” Soweni Little, an aunt of the injured woman recounted to Stabroek News.
The woman said that whenever La Fleur was drunk he would terrorize his relatives and before the shooting, he had threatened his mother that he would burn their home down. It was during those threats that his cousin Kevin Johnson, who is attached to the Grove Police Station, intervened and tried talking to him to calm him down. However, La Fleur who is bigger in size overpowered the police corporal and disarmed him and rushed next door.
Soweni Little said that La Fleur’s anger stemmed from an incident which occurred between him and her cousin. “This story goes back … he believed that my cousin Curtis had mek he bird and cage fall down and he (La Fleur ) say that Curtis didn’t say sorry but Curtis never made his bird fall …so he had it out for he and always threatening to do he something, telling he going to kill him,” she stated.
“He probably was drunk indeed because they say he was drinking around but he had it out for Curtis and I am glad now that he wasn’t home because he would have killed him for sure,” she added.
Another aunt Nicola Little said that her injured niece was in a stable condition and doctors at the Georgetown Public Hospital were preparing her for surgery to remove the bullet, lodged a few inches down from her left shoulder blade. She explained that the mother of one was sitting in the living room of their home when she was shot.
La Fleur’s cousin, the policeman, had called for backup and ranks arrived shortly after he had turned the gun on himself. He was pronounced dead and his body was subsequently taken away by the Lykens Funeral Parlour. An autopsy is scheduled to be performed on him today.
La Fleur, a former Guyana Defence Force (GDF) Lance Corporal, had previously been court martialled and jailed for manslaughter. In March of 1996, during a court martial at the GDF base Camp Ayanganna, La Fleur was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment after he pleaded guilty to the lesser count of manslaughter in the death of a fellow soldier, Corporal Linden Alleye, in Haiti.
He was charged with murder for shooting Alleyne multiple times at a base in Les Cayes, Haiti on January 18th 1996, where the two were deployed and had been part of the Caricom contingent of the United Nations peacekeeping corps.
According to evidence during that court martial, Alleyne had been shot to the face and multiple times about the body with a 9mm Beretta submachine gun by La Fleur. It was stated that a Jamaican Sergeant had disarmed La Fleur.
According to court documents, earlier that evening La Fleur had been imbibing at a farewell function for the troops in Haiti, when he left and went to the home of a woman with whom he had shared a relationship and upon seeing two other soldiers there, he became enraged. The woman fled but he later caught up with her and physically abused her, causing bodily injuries.
In his drunken state, he then went to the camp that Alleyne was in and began behaving rowdily. He was cautioned by Alleyne and he believed he was wronged given that Alleyne was his junior. He threatened the man to “fill him with lead” and left only to return moments later toting
the submachine gun.
The court was also told that La Fleur had demonstrated psychiatric imbalances as through rambling notes, he had talked about “death before dishonour” among other things that did not make sense to his superiors.
Yesterday, when his brother was asked if he ever exhibited unstable tendencies he replied in the negative.
However, neighbours said that they believe that La Fleur was of unsound mind. “That was a mad man functioning as a taxi driver…that man psycho you should see how he carries on just suh out of the blue and you would understand,” one neighbour said.
Police are currently investigating the incident.
