ROSEAU, Dominica, Jul 28, CMC –Two American nationals were on Tuesday found guilty of the murders of Canadian businessman and his partner whose bodies were found in a burnt-out vehicle on December 1, 2023.
A nine-member mixed jury took a few hours to find Jonathan Lehrer, 58, and 63-year-old Robert Snider Jr guilty of the murders of animation pioneer and Canadian philanthropist Daniel Langlois and his 58-year-old longtime partner, Dominique Marchand.
The prosecution had alleged that between November 29 and December 2, 2023, the two Americans murdered Echo Resort owner and former software innovator and founder of Softimage, Daniel Langlois, and his partner, Dominique Marchand, whose bodies were found incinerated in a car near Gallion, in the south of the island. Langlois and Marchand had been reported missing for several days.
Investigators and reports had tied the hostility to a long-running legal dispute between Lehrer and Langlois over access rights to the public road traversing the Bois Cotlette property.
In 2024, Lehrer, through his lawyers, had applied for bail on “medical grounds” to travel to the United States, and in August last year, Chief Magistrate Candia Carette George dismissed a no case submission by lawyers representing two Americans
Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Sherma Dyrample told reporters that the verdict sends a message that the justice system here is efficient.
“This matter happened in 2023, and we have already secured a conviction. The state also expended a lot of resources, so the state is very much interested in law enforcement and fighting crimes,” she added.
Trinidad-based Senior Counsel, Keith Scotland, praised the DPP and her team, including the police, for their investigations and professionalism.
Scotland, who led the prosecution, said “we felt that justice was served in this case,” which took five to six weeks.
“We called 46 witnesses in this case from France to Germany to Barbados to Jamaica to St. Lucia,” he said, adding ”this was a very difficult case because it was based on circumstantial evidence because there was no eyewitness.
“But how the police worked and how the DPP and I and our team worked, we put the pieces together. We brought the evidence before the jury, and we say respectfully that this was a jury’s verdict that was in accordance with the evidence that was presented before the court”
The defence team led by Trinidad-based Senior Counsel Ravi Rajcoomar has not indicated whether it will appeal the verdict, but Scotland said he would not be surprised if an appeal is filed.
“I will not be surprised; we will expect an appeal. We think that this is a safe conviction. The DPP and I are ready to defend any appeal, but for today we will take in this stage in the process, and we will await an appeal if and when we see it,” Scotland said.
“ We can stand by the evidence, and we can say that the conviction is safe. We did everything within the realm of the law, and we operated on the grounds of fairness throughout the matter,” Dyrample added.
Scotland said that the prosecution presented its case “fairly,” adding “we did our best for Daniel and Dominique”
He said that the 46 witnesses during the trial each represented a strand in the cord of circumstantial evidence.
“From the farmer and Charles Mitchell, to the driver, to the security officer, to Magdalene Hunt, to the expert ballistic, to the pathologist, every witness had a part to play, he said, noting that the DPP had to travel to France to interview a witness who was not well.
“We want to thank everyone, and we say that every single witness was important in this case, all 46 of them,” he said.
CMC//cj/ir/2026