As the one-year mark of police discovering a pair of dead bodies in Sarnia and rural Lambton County approaches, the Sarnia man facing two homicide charges has hired his third different lawyer.
Matthew Theriault, 43, was charged in late December 2021 with two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of indignity to a body following the finding of the remains of two Greater Toronto Area men. The longtime Sarnia carpenter hired local criminal defense lawyer Terry Brandon shortly after his arrest, but let her go a couple of months later amid various frustrations – many out of Brandon’s control – and hired Raymond Boggs, a Vaughan-based criminal defense lawyer.
Goal last month Theriault abruptly fired Boggs, although he didn’t say why or who he planned to hire.
Confusion emerged two weeks ago when Brandon told the court Theriault had called her right after discharging Boggs and asked her to be there that day, but duty counsel David Burns also told the court he had instructions from Windsor-based lawyer Robert DiPietro, who claimed Theriault had hired him – a move Brandon was unaware of. Theriault, a member of Carpenters Local 1256 for more than two decades, was indecisive at the time about who he wanted to represent him.
But during his latest appearance Thursday in a virtual Sarnia courtroom from the South West Detention Center near Windsor, duty counsel Sarah Edgar said she had instructions from another Windsor-based criminal defense lawyer, Daniel Scott. Scott asked for the case to be adjourned to Jan. 9 to get disclosure and potentially participate in a pre-trial with the Crown attorney’s office, Edgar said.
Theriault, wearing orange inmate clothes, didn’t say anything else and abruptly walked away while justice of the peace Pauline Bessegato was still in the midst of adjourning the case to early next month. But Scott, a colleague of DiPietro, confirmed Friday via email he has been retained by Theriault.
The body of Mississauga resident Lance Richardson, 31, was found inside a Watson Street home on Dec. 28, 2021, and the remains of a second person were discovered about 40 kilometers east in the Lambton County farming community of Enniskillen Township, police said. Jelani Byer-Coates, 18, of Ajax was eventually identified as the second deceased.
No details about causes of death, potential weapons, or what brought the Toronto-area men to Sarnia-Lambton have been released. Police have generally been tight-lipped about the investigation, which started as a suspicious-person complaint in a separate area of Lambton County, other than saying investigators believe the two deaths are connected.
Theriault, who lived on Watson Street, has been in jail since his arrest last year as he hasn’t applied for bail.
There have been 17 homicide investigations in Sarnia-Lambton since 2020 that have resulted in 27 first- or second-degree murder charges being ugly.