As Dustin LaFortune lies recovering from horrific injuries in a Regina hospital, former neighbours in Calgary are trying to understand how he ended up emaciated and near death.
LaFortune, 26, has told police in Regina that he was assaulted by his former roommate — an acquaintance he worked for and shared a home with in Calgary’s Highland Park neighbourhood.
The horrific details that have emerged since LaFortune was dropped off at a Regina hospital on April 16 have cast a far more ominous light on the happenings at his former home in the 4200 block of Centre Street North.
The house served as the base for a moving company owned by LaFortune’s roommate, and one neighbour said it seemed the men worked — and played — hard.
It wasn’t unusual to hear boisterous laughing coming from the back deck as the men and their friends partied after-hours, but neighbour Tannis Melville-Oberten said hindsight has shown her "there was very much a dark side."
While LaFortune’s roommate was polite to a fault when dealing with neighbours — once apologizing profusely for improperly parking a moving truck — Melville-Oberten said she often heard profane tirades directed at his employees.
"When he wanted something done, he wanted it done right and he wanted it done yesterday," she said.
LaFortune, meanwhile, was quiet.
"They seemed as different as night and day," Melville-Oberten said.
Her last recollection of LaFortune was seeing him shovelling snow in February — around the same time his family stopped hearing from him.
One thing that struck Melville-Oberten was LaFortune often had visible injuries.
"We would see him outside and his face would be (swollen) like a moon," she said.
Given LaFortune’s job and the seemingly rough-and-tumble crowd he lived and worked with, Melville-Oberten said never occurred to her at the time he was being repeatedly beaten and abused.
"He never said ‘boo.’ He never said anything to me," she said.
Another neighbour said he also noticed LaFortune’s injuries and once asked him about it. "He said it was a big filing cabinet that landed on his face," said the man, who didn’t give his name.
LaFortune told family members a similar story when he was taken to a Calgary hospital with broken ribs in September 2009, saying a freezer had fallen onto him.
He weighed only 90 pounds when a man falsely claiming to be his cousin dropped him off at the Regina hospital.
His tongue and bottom lip were cut, his face smashed and his ribs were broken, giving him the appearance of someone who had been tortured, said his mother.
"It’s something worse than a horror movie. You can’t look at him," said Renee LaFortune, who lives in Victoria.
Renee said her son showed evidence of possible brain damage, struggling to follow conversations and being unable to speak. The extent of his brain injuries, if any, are not yet known.
Police in Regina are now trying to piece together what happened to LaFortune, who moved from Winnipeg to Calgary in 2008 to work for the moving company owned by his acquaintance.
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