The mystery of a Canadian visionary killed in Dominica

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Jordan Heath-Rawlings It happens a few times a year. Sadly, we learn of Canadians who die while in the Caribbean, mostly they are on vacation. Often it is a tragic accident or sometimes a killing a robbery gone wrong, maybe a wrong place at the wrong time. Today’s story is not that, at least not according to what police have said, it is the story of a Canadian visionary who moved south to pursue his legacy and his passion, who became deeply entwined in his community through business and charity, and who was allegedly murdered. So who was Daniel Langlois and why was his death such a loss to Canada, to Hollywood, to everyone who watches movies? What was he doing in Dominica? What do we know about the nature of his death and what might we still find out? I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. This is The Big Story. Kenyon Wallace is an investigative reporter with the Toronto Star. Hello Kenyon.

Kenyon Wallace : Hello. Thank you for having me.

Jordan: You are most welcome. This is a strange story that I think nobody saw coming.

Kenyon Wallace : It sure is very unexpected. Daniel Langlois was kind of a quiet millionaire who spent his money on charitable causes sort of from behind the scenes. And when he died, this was shocking to a lot of people in the Canadian arts and business communities who knew him and his contributions to the arts in general.

Jordan: And as I mentioned in the intro, sadly, sometimes we hear about Canadians dying in the Caribbean from a tragic accident or a robbery gone wrong. This is nothing like that. This is allegedly an entirely different beast.

Kenyon Wallace : It is from what we know. Anyway, again, details are at this point very scant. The local authorities in Dominica are keeping a lot of details close to their chest because the trial or even the preliminary hearing is not completed yet, and that’s not even scheduled to be heard in its entirety until at least next March. So the details we have been able to get are just basically through what’s been released officially and through good old shoe leather reporting.

Jordan: Okay. Well first help take us to where this happened. First of all, Dominica, where is it? What kind of place is it in and whereabouts and Dida did this happen?

Kenyon Wallace : Okay, so Dominica is a little country. It’s an island nation in the Caribbean. It’s between Guadalupe in the north and Martinique in the south. And just on a broader context, that’s basically south of the British Virgin Islands, south of Puerto Rico, south of the Dominican Republic. So it’s very far south and it’s sort of isolated. It’s a really small little commonwealth nation. And on that island, Daniel Laua and his partner Dominique Marshant, had set up a, I guess you could call it an eco hotel and resort in the very far south of the island, so almost on the coast. And this eco hotel and resort actually just opened last October. And it was renowned for its environmentally friendly setup in the sense that it was totally off grid. It used water that was collected in cisterns only a 14 suite hotel. So I mean, this was not like your average Holiday Inn. We’re talking about a very high-end, fully sustainable state-of-the-Art, futuristic Nature Reserve Resort type place. And they had been working on that for 15 years in the south of Dominica. And that’s what their sort of passion project has been.

Jordan: And for those of us who aren’t familiar, and you mentioned it a tiny bit off the top there, who are Daniel and his partner? Why did all of showbiz seemingly take an interest in this?

Kenyon Wallace : Yeah, so Daniel ua, a lot of people have probably seen the special effects work that he created, but they’ve never heard his name. So if you’ve watched any say, oh, big blockbuster movies such as Jurassic Park Titanic, the Harry Potter movies, I mean, I could go on name any kind of big blockbuster from the early to mid nineties that had special effects in it or 3D computer generated special effects. And chances are Daniel Lang’s company or software called Softimage, founded in Quebec in Montreal, created the effects. So he got his start back in the mid eighties at the National Film Board, and he kind of got noticed because he created in 1985 a short film called Tony De Paltry, which he co-directed. And it was a fully computer graphic movie. It’s a six minute movie, it’s not long of a pianist, an old barroom pianist recalling his youthful days. And the movie is interesting in the sense that it was one of the very first, if not the first 3D fully computer generated movies where they had very realistic facial expressions on this character, Tony Paltry in the movie. And it had been unlike anything seen up to that point in the movie making industry. And it kind of got him on the radar as a very promising sort of animator in 3D animation. And based on that success of that movie, he started a company again called Self Diage, a 3D animation technology company in Montreal, and had very early investors who had a lot of faith in him. And they raised some money to get him started. And to make a long story short, within about seven years, his software was being used by major Hollywood studios and directors whenever they needed some really fancy 3D special effects. There’s a great scene in Death becomes Her. I don’t know if our listeners remember that movie starring Meryl Streep, where there’s a lot of interesting effects in that movie that at the time were unseen and where people were like, how did they do that? And there’s a scene where Meryl Streep’s head spins around on her body, and that was a very memorable scene from the movie, and that was made using the software that UA invented. And so of course the company started to get a lot of notice and was being used by a lot of big Hollywood studios. And in 92 it began trading on nasdaq. I mean, it became a very successful Canadian business story. And then a lot of companies that are sort of small, it got bought up by a larger behemoth. Microsoft bought it for about 130 million US estimated in 1994. And so Daniel Laua became a millionaire, and he then decided to turn his attention to scientific endeavors, but mainly those that involved charitable endeavors. So he set up a foundation called the Daniel Langlois Foundation. He was also a big backer of sort of up and coming avant-garde sort of outside the mainstream filmmakers making experimental movies. And he set up a cinema complex in Montreal to show these movies that complex was called Centris and became sort of a hub for if you were kind of like a director looking for funding, but you weren’t really mainstream, you could go there and get help with your film. While this is all going on, he’s also developing a love for the country of Dominica, which he moved to in 1997 with his partner Dominique Marshant. While there, they set up a charity to help the island recover from devastating Hurricane Maria, which in September of 2017 destroyed a lot of the infrastructure on the island. So they put a lot of their money into helping the island rebuild from that. And that was in addition to this eco resort hotel that he and Marchand were working on over the years. So he had a very big impact in film and technology and a lot of the special effects that we see today in movies. But you probably wouldn’t know his name, but you’ve definitely seen his software in action.

Jordan: That is an impressive legacy. Again, in wake of recent events, sort of had come to know him as the Jurassic Park special effects guy that’s woefully inadequate. I see.

Kenyon Wallace : Oh, he was involved in so many different movies. I mean, if you’ve seen The Matrix Men in Black, those sort of groundbreaking special effects where people in theaters were like, how on earth did they do that? That was Daniel Lang’s software. And so you can see why he made such a huge impact on the moviemaking industry.

Jordan: And this is where we get to what happened unfortunately on December 1st before we get to what we’ve learned since then. What do we know about what happened on that day?

Kenyon Wallace : Right. Okay. So we don’t know much. The police investigation in do is still ongoing. What we do know is only that which the local authorities have decided to disclose. And I will just give a very brief summary of that. So what we know is that on December the first at 7:00 PM on the island police there got a report of a potential homicide and arson in the southern part of the island. They went to where the call came in and they found a burned out SUV. And inside this burned out SUV were the badly burned bodies of two people and using investigative techniques, the police say that they were able to identify the bodies as that of Langlois and his partner Marand, which was just shocking for the island because I want to make just maybe it’s worth making this clear that this couple was beloved on the island. They were well-known they had donated a lot of their money and time to fixing the infrastructure. As I said earlier, their resort was, well-known and employed a lot of locals and Daniel Lanois had been honored by the local government for his contributions to the island. So this was shocking for people who knew them and lived there. So the police found this car and the bodies and they were able to, again, they won’t say how they were able to go to a nearby property and arrest three people, those people. One of them was an American businessman named Jonathan Laer of New Jersey. Another man was arrested, his name is Robert Thomas Snyder, Jr of Florida, as well as Victoria Laer, Jonathan Lehrer’s wife. She was also arrested. She has not been charged. And then they were taken into custody.

Jordan: What do we know about them? Do we know why they were on the island? Yes,

Kenyon Wallace : We do. So we know why Jonathan Laer and his wife Victoria were there. Jonathan Laer and his wife run and own a chocolate plantation right next to the eco resort and hotel that Daniel Langlois and his partner ran. And that place was called the was Ette Estate where tourists could go to learn how chocolate was made. I think they also grew coffee there, and they were basically neighbors in the southern part of the island. And for some reason, again, we don’t know what those reasons are, police had reason to suspect that there was something going on at that property. And they went there and they arrested the three people who were found there. The other person who was arrested, Robert Snyder, we don’t know what he was doing there. He was not an owner of that chocolate estate. We don’t know his connection to the other accused, Jonathan Lahr, at least on at this point. And as far as we know, he had no connection to the victims either.

Jordan: You mentioned that the two men have been charged. What exactly have they been charged with and what do police allege that they did?

Kenyon Wallace : Yeah, so what we know is that Jonathan Laer and Robert Thomas Snyder, Jr. Of both of the United States, were charged with the murders of Langlois and marand. Again, details are very scarce, but those details we have been able to discover, including details covered by my colleague Sheila Wang, who went down to Dominica to interview locals. They are charged with murdering this couple. And according to the police there, the couple was shot and then placed in the car, which was then set on fire. They made a court appearance and they’re now awaiting the continuation of their preliminary hearing, which will not be until March of 2024. So that’s all we don’t really know a lot, but that’s what we know to date.

Jordan: Do we have any idea about the relationship between these two parties or what might’ve been going on before the alleged murders?

Kenyon Wallace : We do know that Jonathan Laer and Daniel Langlois had a conflict in the past. So I mentioned that Daniel Langlois and his partner Dominique Marand, own a resort hotel in the southern part of Dominica, and that place is called kli, Bri Ridge. I don’t know if I’m saying that right. So if I’m saying it wrong, please forgive me. And there is a road that leads to that resort and it’s a public road. Now, this public road also cuts through the property owned by Jonathan Laer, that is the owner of the was Kalet Estate, that chocolate plantation I was mentioning earlier and court documents that we found in Dominica show that Laer and Langlois had been in a conflict over the use of this road apparently. And this is just what the judge in the case said in a ruling that basically what happened was is that Jonathan Laer seemed to have not liked the use of this public road by the public going through his land and had attempted to block the road on numerous occasions by doing things like digging a trench across the road, putting boulders on it, placing equipment so you couldn’t drive through the area. And of course, that was stopping guests and employees of the Libre Ridge Resort from getting to their place of work or relaxation. So Daniel Langlois had brought applications for injunctions in the Dominican courts to get Jonathan Lair to stop doing this. And based on just the court records, it seems like the relationship had just really deteriorated and Langlois had to keep bringing these applications to the court to get Laer to stop putting things onto the road and preventing people from getting there. And so in that case, the judge ordered Jonathan Laer to stop blocking this public road, which is paid for by taxpayers. It’s a public road, anybody can use it and restore it to its proper use. And he also ordered the parties to undertake mediation. Now, we don’t know if Laer and UA ever did that. We don’t know if there was ever any kind of resolution reached. All we know is that this feud had sort of been going on for a while and that a judge had ordered Laer to stop locking the road and ordered the two parties to try to work out their differences.

Jordan: So what happens now though? There’s been a court appearance and I guess now we wait for the next one for a plea and then a trial, and that’s it. Are we going to find out anything more before then?

Kenyon Wallace : Yeah, that’s a good question. So according to the local police, they are still investigating. There’s still things that they’re looking at, so there may be developments to come in terms of court dates. What we do know is that Laer and his alleged accomplice Snyder are scheduled to reappear in court in March of 2024 in Dominica for their preliminary inquiry, which is essentially when the prosecution determines whether there’s enough evidence to proceed to trial. And in terms of when a trial would be, if in fact it does go to trial. I mean, that’s anyone’s guess. I’m not sure I can speculate on that. I don’t know how busy the courts are down there, but that’s pretty much all we know at this point.

Jordan: The last thing I guess I’ll ask then is just what’s the reaction been in the showbiz industry in Canada in I think a lot of people like myself and probably a lot of our listeners are just learning over the past couple of weeks about Daniel Langlois and how important he was. But among the people who did know that already shocking is this

Kenyon Wallace : Very, very, I mean from all accounts that I’ve heard, Daniel Langlois was a very nice man, a very generous man, one of these humble geniuses who made his millions and then put it to work for good causes. Everyone I’ve talked to who knew him has said only good things about him and what a nice, generous creative mind he was and how they just can’t believe someone with such a big heart and such a vision in terms of not only his business, but his influence in terms of his charitable work, the last person you’d expect to be murdered. I spoke to one of his very early investors, a man by the name of Loudon Owen, who in the mid eighties helped Daniel Laua raise 350,000 to get his company off the ground. And at the time, 3D animation was almost unheard of in Canada. It was not an industry put it that way, but Daniel Laua had this vision, and Owen told me that the faith they placed in him came from that sort of singular idea and vision that he had and his enthusiasm for seeing what could happen in the movie industry. And that’s what convinced him and his investors to go in on it. And of course, they all did very well in the end. So it turned out to be a very good investment. But we saw tributes coming in from all over the place from Hollywood filmmakers, Canadian heritage minister Pascal Xi called him a visionary and digital technologies and paid tribute to him on Twitter. We saw people who’ve worked with him in the industry over the years seeing his praises. Just a guy who kind of saw where movie making was heading in terms of special effects and what computers could do. I mean, loud, Nolan said a really interesting thing to me, and that was anybody today could sit down at their laptop and using a free software probably, or some kind of software create 3D animation students are doing this in school these days. That is because of Daniel LAIs. That was not something that could ever have been done up until the mid eighties. And even those who could do it, there were very few of them. So we have a lot to thank him for, not just in terms of his contribution to movie making, but just in terms of the ability to creatively express ourselves using software we take for granted these days from our home computer to make cartoons or make animation. That was not always possible. And I think people sometimes forget about that. And also his charitable endeavors. I mean, this is a guy who, he received the order of Canada. He was an officer of the Order of Canada. He was a knight of the Order Du Quebec. He had received numerous honorary doctorates and awards. So he was highly accomplished, a visionary. I kind of sort of likened him to the Steve Jobs of 3D animation. He was sort of like the guy who saw where it could go, just like Steve Jobs said, well, one day we’re going to have 20,000 songs on a device the size of your credit card. People were like, are you crazy? No way. That’s not possible. And it happened. And same with Langlois. I think he showed what was possible with computing power, and the storytelling that you can do with what he created is just absolutely incredible. I mean, just watch, look at the movies today. Half of them are completely computer generated to start with these days, and that all stems from the kind of technology that UA created. So I feel the world has lost a very important creative voice, and particularly Canada, because you don’t hear very often of world shattering technology coming out of Montreal. Sure. So I think a lot of people in Canada in particular were very proud of what he accomplished, and that, of course just makes the whole situation even more sad.

Jordan: Kenyon, thanks for this. Thanks for the work you guys are doing. And yeah, it’s a sad case. Perhaps at least more Canadians are learning now, just how much he meant. So thanks again.

Kenyon Wallace : My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Jordan: Kenyon Wallace is following this case for the Toronto Star. That was The Big Story for more head to The Big Story podcast.ca if you want to talk to us about absolutely anything. And believe me, if you sent us feedback this week, we’ve heard it. We listened to it. Now is the time of year when we reflect on our entire year. So it’s a great time to let us know what you think. You can send that feedback by following us on Twitter at The Big Story Fpn by shooting an email to hello at The Big Story podcast.ca or by calling us and leaving a voicemail. That number is 4 1 6 9 3 5 5 9 3 5. The big stories in every podcast player you can imagine. It is also on every smart speaker. All you’ve got to do is ask yours to play The Big Story podcast, at least if you’re in Canada when you do it. Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath Rawlings. We’ll talk tomorrow.