Two Watson Street residents recall seeing some odd activity around an SUV parked in the driveway of a small apartment complex the day before officers swarmed the building with a battering ram where police say they discovered a dead body.
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Two Watson Street residents recall seeing some odd activity around an SUV parked in the driveway of a small apartment complex the day before officers swarmed the building with a battering ram where police say they discovered a dead 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 snowstorm for?’” The neighbor, who declined to give his name, recalled.
The man, who said he gave a statement to police, also recalled seeing someone moving “frantically” around the vehicle at roughly 3:30 pm A couple of hours later, the hatchback was parked backwards against the garage and a small alleyway between the garage and the house, he said.
The neighbor added the SUV was “tucked up so tight” the hatchback could “barely” open.
“It was wedged right back in there,” he said.
Jim Bell, who lives in the apartment complex at the center of a weeklong police investigation, also remembered an SUV being parked in a “weird” angle in the driveway for a couple of days.
Where the two neighbors disagree, though, 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 indignity to a body after two people were found dead in the city and rural Lambton County. The charges were announced Thursday night by Lambton OPP shortly after Postmedia published a story about them based on short documents.
Theriault has lived in a basement apartment at 102 Watson St. for the past six or seven years. Bell previously told The Observer Theriault was a “good” neighbor who mostly kept to himself.
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“Good neighbor would not be the description I would give,” the unnamed neighbor’s wife, who also declined to give her name, said Friday. “He was not someone who kept to himself.
“It wasn’t huge trouble, but Matt was just a nuisance.”
The couple said Theriault constantly left the engine of his Harley-Davidson motorcycle on while he was “tinkering” with it in the driveway. He would then use “quiet” Watson Street as “his personal drag strip,” the woman alleged.
“And then when it wasn’t motorcycle season, he would do the same thing with his vehicle,” she said.
Theriault owned an older Ford Escape that was banged up, neighbors said.
Theriault is a member of Carpenters Local 1256, according to his Facebook page.
Bob Schenck, an official with the Sarnia-based union, confirmed Theriault is a member who’s worked for various contractors in the area. He first joined as an apprentice in the fall of 1998.
“He was still an apprentice,” Schenck said Friday. “He hadn’t got his Red Seal.”
Theriault last worked this past October, Schenck said, but was preparing to write an exam.
“That was the last I knew anyway,” he said.
The union said Friday in a statement to The Observer it was “shocked” to learn of the investigations into the two deaths.
Police said the investigation started Dec. 28 with a “low-key” suspicious-person complaint that afternoon in a secluded area near the tiny Lambton County community of Oil Springs used by area farmers and youth for “mudding.” The subject of the complaint was arrested with their vehicle in a different area near the village and the investigation led them to Watson Street in Sarnia, police said.
The unnamed couple watched the investigation unfold first-hand over the ensuing week. Investigators “really focused” on a fire-pit area, the husband said.
“Other than the command center being here and a cohort of police going back and forth with little white booties on and hazmat-suit-type outfits, I didn’t see a ton of anything else,” he added.
Police said the body of 31-year-old Mississauga resident Lance Richardson was recovered at the Watson Street apartment complex. Multiple York Regional police spokespeople did not respond by press time Friday to questions about whether a missing person’s report was filed for Richardson prior to his death.
The remains of a second person were found in Enniskillen Township, police said, but they were still working with Ontario’s chief coroner and forensic pathology services to confirm their identity.
Investigators believe the two deaths are connected, police said, but no details about cause of death or potential weapons have been released.
Anyone with information or who had contact with Richardson before his death is being asked to contact the OPP at 1-888-310-1122 or Crime Stoppers 1-800-222-8477.
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A Lambton OPP spokesperson did not respond by press time Friday for a response to the SUV-based observations made by the neighbors. Sarnia police have directed all questions to the OPP.
Theriault, who grew up in the Enniskillen Township-area village of Oil Springs before moving to Sarnia, is being held in the Sarnia Jail. He is next scheduled to appear in court on Jan. 24.
The Matthew Theriault sentenced in January 2021 to 10 years in prison for manslaughter is a different person.
Note: The reporter has relative who are members of Carpenters Local 1256.