When Josh LaFleur arrived on foot at his grandparents’ home during an intense police manhunt for him, he told his grandfather he “might have shot somebody,” a B.C. Supreme Court trial heard Monday.
Arthur Cave and his wife, Lillian, had heard about the drive-by shooting in Sooke on June 14, 2016, either on the radio or television, said Cave, who testified as a Crown witness at his grandson’s trial.
LaFleur is charged with the aggravated assault of Travis Twinn, who was shot in the abdomen, assault causing bodily harm to Gordon Thomas, who was shot in the arm, and discharging a restricted firearm with intent to endanger the lives of Twinn and Thomas.
LaFleur is also charged with being in a car with a restricted firearm, possessing a restricted Glock semi-automatic pistol and a prohibited .380 automatic Colt pistol without a licence or registration, and possession of cocaine, MDMA, marijuana and psilocybin for the purpose of trafficking.
He was arrested on June 19, 2016, after a five-day manhunt that shut down Thetis Lake Regional Park and prompted public warnings about armed and dangerous suspects.
A few days after the shooting, LaFleur and his friend Damien Medwedrich showed up at Cave’s house on Lost Lake Road in Langford, Cave testified.
“Josh said he was involved in an altercation in Sooke and that he had walked to our place,” said Cave. “Well, he said there were gunshots and he said it started when he was at a playground having a smoke and a couple of cars came by that weren’t friendly toward him and a pursuit started.”
LaFleur told him someone from Sooke was chasing them in a car, Cave said. LaFleur also told him he thought somebody had shot at their car.
“He told me that there were two cars of people. … He said that guys came out of the vehicle and looked like they were going to attempt to beat them up. There was a gunshot and then the driver of the car Josh was in took off through a ditch and they left. … He said he might have shot someone.”
“Did he tell you who?” asked prosecutor Clare Jennings.
“No,” Cave replied.
“Did you ask why he thought he shot somebody?”
“He said he thought he was going to get beat up. … Some guys he never got along with in Sooke, is what he said.”
That evening, Arthur Cave, his wife Lillian, LaFleur and Medwedrich sat around the kitchen table for hours. LaFleur’s grandparents encouraged the young men to turn themselves in to the RCMP before things escalated, said Cave. “Our concern was getting them to the RCMP station in Langford.”
Cave said he left for work the next morning about 7:30, leaving his wife, LaFleur and Medwedrich in the house. The plan was for Lillian to drive them to the RCMP detachment.
But when Cave arrived home, LaFleur and Medwedrich had run off and police had barricaded the house.
Cave testified that he didn’t know what LaFleur did for a living and didn’t talk to him about how he made money.
Under cross-examination, Cave told defence lawyer Bob Claus that everyone was upset during the conversation around the kitchen table.
LaFleur was on the phone a lot, trying to work out when and where he would turn himself in, said Cave.
LaFleur spent a fair bit of time outside on the deck, talking on the phone.
“Every time he came back from the phone, it was a different story.”
Claus suggested that LaFleur could have said “somebody was shot” as opposed to “I shot somebody.”
“It could have been,” Cave said.
Cave said he had never seen LaFleur with weapons or heard him talk about guns.
LaFleur lived in a small cottage on the Caves’ property with his mother from the age of two until he was about 10, said Cave. After that, he and his mother lived on their own for about four years. When LaFleur was 14 or 15, he lived with his father for a while.
“We didn’t see him for a period of time after he was 18 or 19. We’d see him at Christmas, maybe birthdays. That’s it. But when he had his child, he and his girlfriend would come over the odd time. We did see them more then, just after the baby was born three years ago.”
LaFleur smiled at his grandfather as he left the courtroom. The Crown has now closed its case.
