Two residents of Watson Street remember seeing a strange activity around an SUV parked in the driveway of a small apartment complex the day before, officers crowded the building with a rambuk, where police say they discovered a body.
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Two residents of Watson Street remember seeing a strange activity around an SUV parked in the driveway of a small apartment complex the day before, officers crowded the building with a rambuk, where police say they discovered a body.
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A small black hatchback was parked there in the mid-afternoon of Dec. 27 with all four doors and the trunk “wide open” for more than an hour, a nearby neighbor said Friday.
“It was snowing like (crazy) out there, and I thought, ‘Wow, what are you leaving your car open in a blizzard for?'” Remembered the neighbor, who refused to disclose his name.
The man, who said he made a statement to police, also remembered that he had seen someone moving “frantically” around the vehicle around 3:30 p.m. A few hours later, the hatchback was parked backwards towards the garage and a small alley between the garage. and the house, he said.
The neighbor added that the SUV was “stored so firmly” that the hatchback “could hardly” open.
“It was wedged back in there,” he said.
Jim Bell, who lives in the apartment complex at the center of a week-long police investigation, also recalled that an SUV was parked at a “weird” angle in the driveway for a few days.
Where the two neighbors disagree, however, is what it was like to live near Matthew Edward Theriault.
The 42-year-old Sarnia man has been charged with two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of insulting a corpse after two people were found dead in the town and rural Lambton County. The charges were announced Thursday night by Lambton OPP shortly after Postmedia published a story about them based on legal documents.
Theriault has lived in a basement apartment at 102 Watson St. in the last six to seven years. Bell previously told The Observer that Theriault was a “good” neighbor who mostly kept to himself.
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“Good neighbor would not be the description I would give,” said the unnamed neighbor’s wife, who also declined to disclose her name. “He was not someone who kept to himself.
“There were no major problems, but Matt was just a nuisance.”
The couple said Theriault constantly left the engine on his Harley-Davidson motorcycle on while “joking” with it in the driveway. He would then use “quiet” Watson Street as “his personal trait,” the woman claimed.
“And when it was not motorcycle season, he would do the same with his vehicle,” she said.
Theriault owned an older Ford Escape that was turned up, neighbors said.
Theriault is a member of Carpenters Local 1256, according to his Facebook page.
Bob Schenck, a Sarnia-based union official, confirmed that Theriault is a member who has worked for various contractors in the area. He first came as an apprentice in the autumn of 1998.
“He was still an apprentice,” Schenck said Friday. “He had not got his red seal.”
Theriault worked in late October last year, Schenck said, but was preparing to write an exam.
“It was the last thing I knew anyway,” he said.
The union said Friday in a statement to The Observer that it was “shocked” to hear about the investigations into the two deaths.
Police said the investigation began Dec. 28 with a “subdued” complaint about suspects that afternoon in a secluded area near the small Lambton County community of Oil Springs, used by the area’s farmers and youth to “mud.” The subject of the complaint was arrested with their vehicle in another area near the village, and the investigation led them to Watson Street in Sarnia, police said.
The unnamed couple saw the investigation unfold first-hand over the ensuing week. Investigators “really focused” on a campfire area, the man said.
“Besides the fact that the command center is here and a group of police walking back and forth with little white boots on and clothes of the hazmat suit type, I did not see a host of other things,” he added.
Police said the body of 31-year-old Mississauga resident Lance Richardson was found in the Watson Street apartment complex. Several York Regional Police spokesmen did not respond at press time Friday to questions about whether a missing person’s report was filed for Richardson before his death.
The remains of another person were found in Enniskillen Township, police said, but they were still working with Ontario’s leading forensic and forensic services to confirm their identity.
Investigators believe the two deaths are linked, police said, but no details about the cause of death or potential weapons have been released.
Anyone with information or who had contact with Richardson prior to his death is asked to contact OPP at 1-888-310-1122 or Crime Stoppers 1-800-222-8477.
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A Lambton OPP spokesman did not respond at press time Friday to a response to the SUV-based observations made by neighbors. Sarnia police have directed all questions to OPP.
Theriault, who grew up in the village of Oil Springs in the Enniskillen Township area before moving to Sarnia, is being held in Sarnia Prison. He is due to appear in court next January 24.
Matthew Theriault, who in January 2021 was sentenced to 10 years in prison for manslaughter, is another person.
Note: The reporter has relatives who are members of Carpenters Local 1256.
