Young couple preparing for their wedding are shot dead on their front lawn during an argument with their landlord: Suspect barricaded himself in his home before being killed by police
- Police were called to the Stoney Creek district of Hamilton, Ontario at 5:40 p.m. Saturday after reports of gunfire
- They found a 27-year-old woman and her 28-year-old fiancée dead on the lawn in front of the house: the couple had fled from their landlord
- Terry Bourassa, 57, argued with the couple over the basement where they lived: when police arrived he barricaded himself and was shot dead at 10pm
A Canadian couple engaged to be married was shot dead by their landlord in the front yard of their house, after which the landlord barricaded himself before being killed in a shootout with police.
Police were called to the home at 5:40 p.m. Saturday in the Stoney Creek district of Hamilton, Ontario, amid reports that gunshots had been found.
They found the 27-year-old woman, who worked as a teaching assistant at a local Catholic school, and her 28-year-old electrician fiancee dead.
The two, whose name has not been mentioned, rented the basement of a home owned by 57-year-old Terry Bourassa.
The pair got into a falling out with Bourassa, stemming from a “disagreement over issues within the house,” Det said. Sergeant Steve Bereziuk, of Hamilton Police’s Major Crime Unit.
The engaged couple lived in the basement of this house in Stoney Creek, Hamilton: their landlord Terry Bourassa lived above it. He shot and killed the pair in a dispute over the home on Saturday, before barricading himself inside and being shot dead by police
They ran away from the house when they were shot dead.
“(They were) both hard-working people, which added to the tragedy of this event,” he said.
Neither the couple nor Bourassa were known to police, Bereziuk confirmed, making what happened “a little more shocking.”
Bereziuk added that the murder of the young couple was very shocking.
“As you can imagine, these aren’t people this should be happening to,” he said.
“They are not involved in any kind of crime or lifestyle that could lead to an incident like this. They really are innocent.’
Bourassa then barricaded himself in the house, with weapons he was legally holding.
Bereziuk said police spent ‘considerable time’ negotiating a ‘peaceful solution’ with Bourassa, but he opened fire on them around 10pm and was shot dead.
Sandra Chaisson, a resident of more than four decades in the area of the incident, said the landlord bought the Jones Road house from her grandparents.
Chasson told CP24 News that Bourassa had lived in the house for more than 20 years.
‘He was very quiet. A very calm man. I haven’t seen him much, just to wave hello, but I haven’t seen him in a long time,” she said.
“The tenants were in the basement, but I didn’t know them, just to see them at the mailbox.”
Chaisson said she was watching TV around 10 p.m. when she heard six to eight high-speed shots.
“It was kind of scary,” she said. “It’s a shock to all of us.”