Police charge LaMere in burning death

Mitchell LaMere, 23, of Box Elder, intentionally started a house fire that killed Fred Bacon, Chippewa Cree Tribal Police said in a complaint filed Friday.

The complaint says Lamere started the fire at 18 Indian Rock St. on Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation on May 19 with a bottle of gasoline he obtained from his mother’s residence.

Lamere doused the front entrance in gasoline and lit it on fire, before entering the house through the rear door. Lamere then lit trash in a garbage can on fire that was placed in the middle of the house’s kitchen floor, the complaint says.

Lamere did not warn occupants of the fire, the document says.

Charging documents say Lamere started the fire with the intent of hurting or killing his former girlfriend Taneal Sutherland, and A.J. and Justin The Boy, under the mistaken impression they were in the house.

The house’s owner later told investigators she had awoken to the smell of smoke. The complaint says that when she opened her bedroom door the hallway was engulfed in smoke and she was forced to exit the house through an open bedroom window.

Police and first responders were called to the house at 5:07 a.m.

Bacon was unable to escape from the house and according to charging documents, sustained fatal injuries including smoke inhalation. He also sustained burns to his upper body.

He was pulled from the house by first responders and placed in an ambulance but was unresponsive to treatment.

A doctor with the Montana State Crime Lab in Missoula later said the official cause of death was smoke inhalation.

Police later found Lamere at his mother’s house, also on the reservation, where he was arrested on outstanding warrants for previous charges.

He is being held on those charges at the Rocky Boy Detention Center. He is now being charged with other crimes including murder.

Charging documents say Lamere later told the FBI that he had walked to the Indian Rock residence after a night of drinking in Havre. While at the residence, he saw Sutherland, talking with A.J. and Justin The Boy.

Lamere then got in a fight with both of them and threatened to set the house on fire before he left, police said. He later returned to the residence and started the blaze, police said.

Charging documents did not say if Lamere had meant to hurt Bacon.

The complaint filed with the court has charged Lamere with deliberate homicide, negligently endangering another person, malicious mischief, arson and disorderly conduct.

Chippewa Cree Tribal Law Enforcement Services, the Chouteau County Sheriff’s Office and county coroner and the FBI also took part in the investigation, charging documents say.

In recent weeks, tribal police and FBI have declined to comment to the Havre Daily News on the case, although the FBI has confirmed it is investigating a case of arson.

Lamere is scheduled to be arraigned in Chippewa Cree Tribal Court today at 1:30 p.m.