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Murder charges were filed Wednesday against two Americans over the deaths of animation pioneer and Quebec philanthropist Daniel Langlois and his partner on the island of Dominica, local police said.
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The bodies of Langlois and Dominique Marchand, who had been missing for several days, were found incinerated in a car on Friday near Gallion, in the south of the small Caribbean island, where they owned a hotel.
“Two American citizens, Jonathan Lehrer and Robert Snider, have been charged for murder. They are in custody,” a Dominican police spokesperson told AFP.
The police offered no immediate motive for the murders.
Snider and Lehrer, a contractor and neighbour of the Quebec couple on the island, appeared briefly in the Roseau Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday morning, the police spokesperson added.
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Authorities indicated on Monday that four people had been arrested in the investigation.
Langlois made a fortune developing cutting-edge 3D animation software for the company he founded, Softimage, that was used in Hollywood blockbusters such as “Jurassic Park,” “Star Wars,” and “The Matrix.”
In 1994, he sold his company to Microsoft, and three years later, he was awarded a scientific and technical Oscar, according to his foundation’s website.
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