LAKE CHARLES, La. — The good Samaritan who helped capture a man accused of shooting a state trooper said Monday that he was first warned off by bystanders but charged up anyway to try to help the trooper in distress.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Robert LeDoux said he said he could see “pure evil” in the suspect’s eyes.
LeDoux described how he tackled and restrained the man, called 911 and worked with others who arrived on the scene to keep the suspect subdued and help the trooper.
Kevin Daigle, 54, is accused of shooting Senior Trooper Steven Vincent on Sunday evening when Vincent found Daigle’s truck in a ditch. Vincent died Monday. Authorities plan to charge Daigle with first-degree murder of an officer.
LeDoux said he was out for a drive Sunday when he saw flashing police lights about a quarter mile away and then was stopped by three men calling 911. They urged him to turn around after they had seen a man brandishing a gun by the trooper.
“One of the guys said, ‘Don’t go down there. That guy’s got a gun,”’ LeDoux said.
He took off anyway, heading straight to the scene, where the truck was in the ditch. When he arrived on the scene Daigle was standing over the trooper, looking through his pockets and trying to yank the trooper’s gun from a holster.
“He told me, ‘Everything’s all right. Mind your own business. You need to go,”’ LeDoux recalled. “All I could see was pure evil in his eyes.”
Instead of leaving, LeDoux said: “I took off running. I tackled him. We hit the ground. I was on top of him and I called 911.”
The other men, seeing LeDoux tackle the gunman, came to help. They handcuffed the shooter and two of them held him down while LeDoux went to help Vincent, using the trooper’s radio to call for assistance.
Police have called him a hero.
Meanwhile, authorities on Monday also said they found the body of a man whom Daigle had stayed with, and they said Daigle is a suspect in his death.
Calcasieu Parish Tony Mancuso said authorities found the body Monday morning at his home in Moss Bluff after the man did not go to work.
The sheriff said the truck that Daigle ran into a ditch belonged to the Moss Bluff victim.
He said that killing could clarify why an apparently distressed motorist would shoot and kill a trooper who was trying to help him.
The man’s identity was not immediately released.
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