An American chocolatier and his alleged accomplice have been charged in the Caribbean island of Dominica with the murder of a Canadian animation innovator and eco-resort owner and his partner days after their bodies were found in a burned-out car.
Jonathan Lehrer, 57, and Robert Snider appeared in magistrates court in Roseau, the capital, on Wednesday to face charges relating to the murders of Daniel Langlois and Dominique Marchand. They did not enter a plea.
Lehrer owns property next to Coulibri Ridge, a luxury eco-resort run by Langlois and Marchand listed by Condé Nast Traveler as a “hotlist” destination for 2023 and by Travel + Leisure as the “world’s greenest resort”. He is reported to have been locked in a dispute with the couple over a public road that passes through Lehrer’s cocoa plantation estate.
Radio-Canada, citing local sources, said that Langlois and Marchand had been ambushed and killed before their car plunged into the ravine and caught fire last Friday.
The fire that engulfed their bodies was reported to be so intense that police relied on “circumstantial evidence” to identify them. “This type of terrible and brutal crime cannot be ignored, and we cannot allow those responsible to get away with it,” Dominica’s minister of national security, Rayburn Blackmoore, said on national radio.
Four people have been arrested in connection with the crime, but only Lehrer and Snyder have been charged. They will next appear in court in March.
Lehrer is the owner of the Bois Cotlette estate, a chocolate maker. His father, Robert Lehrer, told the Journal de Montréal that his son was “a successful businessman, not a murderer”.
“I have a hard time believing it … He was fed up with illegal crossings on his route and it bothered him a lot, but it had been a while since I had any news,” he added.
According to the Journal, Lehrer and Langlois had been in a dispute about the Morne Rouge road that runs through Lehrer’s property and provided the only access to the eco-resort. Langlois had reportedly organized a demonstration against Lehrer.
In 2018, after Lehrer tried to block the route using rocks and metal pipes and by digging a trench, the eastern Caribbean supreme court ruled it was a public road paid for by taxpayers. The court considered the construction of a second road but opted for mediation and later granted Langlois’ employees and guests unrestricted access.
Langlois was known as a computer animation pioneer who had developed 3D animation software that was used in movies including Jurassic Park, Titanic, The Matrix, and the Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean franchises. Langlois sold the company, Softimage, to Microsoft for $200m in 1994.
The couple spent 15 years building Coulibri Ridge on a 285-acre property, including a five-year delay after Hurricane Maria in 2017. Along with five three-storey cottages, the resort features its own power-generating mini grid as well as a rainwater-harvesting system, 90 solar panels and an appointment-only spa, with 40 staff members and three infinity pools.
“It is with great sadness that we learned of the tragic death of Daniel Langlois,” the National Film Board of Canada said on X, formerly known as Twitter. “His contributions to the world of cinema are incalculable.”
