November 10, 2009 in News

Vehicular homicide charge sought in boy’s death

• Print
• Email
• Share

Investigators are seeking a vehicular homicide charge against the father of a 4-year-old boy who died near Mount Spokane last summer.

Gerrin P.R. LaFleur died Aug. 19 during a family firewood-gathering trip in the foothills near North Wallis Road and East Elliot Road.

His father, Lester C. LeFleur, told authorities the boy fell from atop his parked 1985 Ford F-250 pickup.

But investigators received conflicting reports of what happened and searched the truck for hair fibers, fingerprints and other evidence to understand the circumstances surrounding the death. An autopsy said the boy died of a bruised and cut right lung, according to court documents.

Spokane County sheriff’s Detective David Thornburg now believes enough evidence has been found to support a vehicular homicide charge against the father.

Thornburg said the boy’s injuries appeared to have been caused when the truck was moving.

The Spokane County Prosecutor’s Office is reviewing the detective’s recommendation.

LaFleur, 35, declined to comment through his brother-in-law, Jeremiah Donier, who said the family is being treated unfairly.

“We want the whole community to know that we certainly do care that Gerrin passed way. We feel that it was a tragedy,” Donier said. “People have not talked about it correctly.”

LaFleur called 911 while driving to a fire station and said he thought his son was dead.

One of Gerrin’s older sisters said a branch pulled the boy out of the truck when it was moving.

Another family member said the boy had unbuckled his seat belt and climbed out of the truck.

Detectives found two child-size boot marks on the top of the driver’s side rear bumper.

Five comments on this story so far. Add yours!

• 

  JFRENCH on November 10 at 9:09 p.m.

  A true shame. Should have told the truth the first time.

• 

  biker on November 10 at 9:39 p.m.

  Vehicular homicide on the father….on a hunch. Let’s bring more grief upon the family. This was obviously a stupid accident…but stupid things happen, and they happen to all of us at one time or another. The outcomes of life’s unpredictable’s are dealt out indiscriminately. Let’s get off our high horses and remember that it is very unlikely the father had any idea such a tragedy would occur. Crap happens in life and it sickens every one who hears about it, or personally experiences something like this. I am not privy to to the whole story or extenuating circumstances, but if it turns out to be just a tragic accident, not induced by alcohol, or intentional neglect, let this tragedy be put to rest gracefully.

• 

  Rifleman__Dodd on November 10 at 11:21 p.m.

  With so many conflicting stories their must be a lot of contention among the family members.

  Ms. Spencer, I often times concur with your feelings on the topic of subjecting the family to more grief through our injustice system, but with all the b.s. floating about on this, I feel that a court of law may shed some light on what really happened and why there are conflicting stories.

  So far IMHO the truth hasn’t come out and perhaps some court time will extract it.

  Lying isn’t like wine. It doesn’t get better in time.

• 

  Bre on November 11 at 4:15 p.m.

  It’s not like Any police force to tell the media that they want to arrest someone or thing they have enough evidence to arrest someone before they get an arrest warrant or even before they arrest them. The Sheriff’s office talked about fibers and prints being on the truck, like they shouldn’t be there. From the understanding I have got from reading/watching the news stories when this tragedy happened, the child was -helping daddy- in the truck they used to get firewood. (The Work Truck) I know that if I took my four year old son to do a –big job- gathering wood, he would want to crawl over every inch of the truck all day long until it was time to go home. The sheriff’s spokes person talking to the media seems to be indicating that having an excited 4 year old boy is evidence of a crime. There is no mention of blood; you would think that if they are going to tell the media anything like this that they wouldn’t stop at that I can see there being no blood if the child fell, like this family has been saying all along; but being hit by a truck? O.o They also talk about a bruised and cut right lung, no blood but a cut lung, a rib might do that, but I recall the media saying C.P.R. was being performed on the way to the way to meet up with paramedics and that the paramedics did C.P.R., and C.P.R. is a difficult to do in a stressful situation on an adult, it is too easy to do damage to the chest, lungs and heart of a child with C.P.R..
  Reading this article and thing about what I have been told by the media of what happened that day, we have not only a father that was obviously involved in his children’s lives but large supportive family, otherwise he wouldn’t have had not only the four year old with him but Gerrin sister with him. (The sister the sheriff’s office seems to like to quote to the media as an example of incoherent witness statements. That seems a bit fishy to me, we are talking about a CHILD that witnessed her little brothers death. O.o ) The sheriff’s office talks about the child unbuckling his seat belt stated by another family member, possibly another child? When I park my car I encourage my four year old son to unbuckle his seatbelt and get out of the car by himself, it’s what four year olds do, but it is still a big milestone when they start manage it by themselves. The other evidence of a supportive family is Jeremiah Donier, who has shown this family respect and support in dealing with the media. Looking back on some of the other news stories to refresh my memory of what was reported I have seen some blogs by some incoherent, and upset but plainly sportive family members.
  This feels like a witch hunt put on by the sheriff’s office, a witch hunt where they are using the media to their own ends. Dangling half the facts out of context to the media to try to pin a horrible accident on someone by public sway to ease their hearts, justify their pay checks and pull the attention off the incident where it took them several days to recapture the murder that escaped at the fair this year. It makes me sick to see the media being used! This isn’t true police work this is pin the tail on the donkey and maybe I won’t have to do my job games. Talk about tax dollars going to waste.

• 

  jdonier on November 20 at 12:30 p.m.

  Bre was spot on in her comments. I wasn’t present when Gerrin had his accident, so I can really speculate on what happened. What is true is that everyone there — including two adult friends of my brother-in-law — all have said the same thing consistently: Gerrin fell off the truck while it was parked and wood was being loaded on to it. The information that keeps changing is coming from the Sheriff’s Office. I can’t go into details because there is likely a civil suit pending, but the fact is that 911 and the Sheriff’s Office did something seriously wrong and they’re covering it up. All the friends and family of the Lafleurs stand behind them and support them during this tragedy. If you want to help you can donate to the Gerrin Lafleur Memorial Fund at any U.S. Bank. The money raised for this is administered by me and is overseen by the IRS – who stipulates that it must go to either a church or non-profit which can then assist the family with their needs.