Two U.S. men guilty of murdering Quebec couple Daniel Langlois and Dominique Marchand in Dominica

Jonathan Lehrer and Robert Snyder Jr. were convicted Tuesday of killing the Canadian couple, found dead in a burned vehicle in December 2023.

Jury convicts two Americans over deaths of Canadian philanthropists in Dominica

Two American men were found guilty on Tuesday of murdering a Quebec couple on the Caribbean island of Dominica, globalnews.ca reports. Jonathan Lehrer and Robert Snyder Jr. were convicted of killing Daniel Langlois and his partner, Dominique Marchand, whose bodies were discovered in December 2023 inside a burned vehicle near a luxury eco-hotel they owned on the island.

A jury in Roseau, the capital of Dominica, reached the guilty verdict after two hours of deliberation. Sentencing has been scheduled for a later date.

Both men had pleaded not guilty to the murder charges. They were arrested shortly after the killings in 2023, alongside two other foreign nationals and one Dominican national, according to reporting by the BBC and The Guardian. Police described Snyder Jr. as Lehrer's "accomplice."

The trial began last month, more than two years after the couple was found dead.

At the centre of the case was a long-running land dispute. According to media reports cited by globalnews.ca, Lehrer owns a property adjacent to the couple's hotel in Soufrière, a village on the island's southwest coast. He had been locked in a legal conflict with Langlois over a public road that crossed onto Lehrer's estate — the only accessible route to Langlois's resort.

Langlois reportedly organised a demonstration against Lehrer after the American attempted to block the road by placing rocks across it, digging a trench, and setting a fire. Courts had opted for mediation between the two parties in an effort to find an agreed solution, the Journal de Montréal reported.

Lehrer, a millionaire chocolate maker from New Jersey, had been defended by his father, who told the Journal de Montréal in 2023: "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." His father described him as "a successful businessman, not a murderer."

Langlois and Marchand had lived in Dominica since 1997, where they built and operated the eco-hotel Coulibri Ridge overlooking the Caribbean Sea, and were involved in additional development projects on the island. The couple were regarded as respected philanthropists in the local community.

Langlois also founded the animation software company Softimage. The BBC reported that his technology was used in major film productions including The Matrix and Titanic.

Source: Google News DM — Crime