The reason I call the fire "suspicious" will become apparent as you read the articles and comments.
The newspaper articles are quoted for educational purposes.
(Carlton County Pine Journal)
Published August 01, 2012, 12:00 AM
Suspect in Langenbrunner slaying accused of witness tampering
The man accused of murdering Trina Langenbrunner is accused of working with his girlfriend to harass, intimidate and threaten witnesses against him.
The man accused of murdering Trina Langenbrunner is accused of working with his girlfriend to harass, intimidate and threaten witnesses against him.
Both also are suspected of being involved with an arson fire set at the residence of a relative of a witness against him. (Comment from Lloyd Wagner, 5-26-2014: Funny they’d go after a RELATIVE of the witness – and it would be interesting to read elsewhere about this arson fire, as arson fires and even accidental fires are generally reported in the media. I guess this one is “classified”, however. Wouldn’t want the Coutures knowing whose house they’d burned?)
Joseph John Couture Jr., 41, and Sandra Kay Couture, 38, both of Cloquet, are charged in State District Court in Duluth with aiding and abetting aggravated first-degree witness tampering by threatening another to provide false information to police, aiding and abetting first-degree witness tampering, and aiding and abetting third-degree witness tampering.
“Investigators became aware of concerns from some of our witnesses who were contacted,” said St. Louis County prosecutor Jessica Smith. “Investigators began monitoring phone calls between Joe and Sandra from jail. Through that investigation they were able to corroborate the threats and where they were coming from and that led to the charges.” (Comment from Lloyd Wagner, 5-26-2014: According to this, Joe and Sandra ARE fully aware who the witnesses are (and it seems there are more than 2 witnesses, though in the beginning, there were only 2 of them). Obviously, the witnesses’ identities are only being kept secret from the public, as the Coutures already know who they are. I wonder what purpose this serves. Do the witnesses need protection from the public? I suppose those questions will be answered as the case proceeds towards trial (wink wink).)
Joseph Couture was being held in the St. Louis County Jail on $1 million bail on charges of intentional second-degree murder and second-degree criminal sexual conduct in the 2000 death of Langenbrunner, a 33-year-old mother of three. An additional $200,000 was added to his bail.
Langenbrunner was last seen hitchhiking in the area of Brookston Road between 1:30 and 2 a.m. on Sept. 3, 2000. Joseph Couture was a neighbor of Langenbrunner at the time. The victim’s stabbed body was discovered off a rural road in southern St. Louis County.
Couture was arrested on June 15 after two witnesses came forward identifying the Level 3 sex offender as Langenbrunner’s alleged killer, 12 years after the fact.
Sandra Couture is being held in the St. Louis County Jail on $150,000 bail on the witness tampering charges.
According to the criminal complaints charging witness tampering:
Phone calls made by Joseph Couture revealed the control he had over girlfriend Sandra Couture. They spoke in a code in which it is alleged that Joseph had Sandra attempt to intimidate two witnesses to recant their statements. The threats to the victims are alleged to have occurred between July 6 and July 23.
On July 4, Joseph Couture called his girlfriend and allegedly told her, “I need to (expletive) get out and (expletive) kill people.”
On July 6, the Carlton County sheriff’s office responded to an arson fire at the property of one of the relatives of a witness who claims Joseph Couture killed Langenbrunner. The house, a car and a truck on the property were burned with the structure being a total loss. Two dogs were reported missing and presumed dead. Details of the arson fire were consistent with details discussed beforehand between the Coutures, the complaint alleges.
On July 19, Carlton County deputies returned to the scene of the arson fire when the property owner reported that a second attempt had been made to burn items on his property. Deputies recovered the remains from several Molotov cocktails — glass bottles with accelerant and fuses in them.
Tags: news, crime, courts, cloquet
Below (indented) is the text relating the guilty plea of Sandra Couture, with some comments from me, (in red font). Again, the article is quoted for educational purposes.
Published on April 1st, 2013
Source: Duluth News Tribune “Woman pleads guilty to tampering, arson in 2000 murder case,” March 30, 2013.
Woman pleads guilty to tampering, arson in 2000 murder case
Sandra Kay Couture testified Friday that she threatened witnesses and set fire to the home of a witness’ family member because her boyfriend, Joseph John Couture, didn’t want them to provide evidence against him in his trial for the murder of Trina Langenbrunner.
Sandra Couture, 40, of Cloquet, pleaded guilty to first-degree aggravated witness tampering and to first-degree arson before Judge Dale Harris in State District Court.
Joseph Couture, 41, is charged with second-degree murder and second-degree criminal sexual conduct in the 2000 death of Langenbrunner. He also is accused of witness tampering. St. Louis County sheriff’s deputies arrested Joseph Couture in June after working the case for nearly a dozen years.
Langenbrunner, a 33-year-old mother of three, was last seen hitchhiking in the area of Brookston Road between 1:30 and 2 a.m. on Sept. 3, 2000. Joseph Couture, now 41, was a neighbor of Langenbrunner at the time. The victim’s stabbed body was discovered off a rural road in southern St. Louis County.
Under the terms of a plea agreement Sandra Couture reached with the St. Louis County Attorney’s Office, she would serve a prison sentence of eight years and eight months for the witness tampering conviction and a seven-year sentence for the arson conviction. The sentences would be served at the same time. Harris directed that an Arrowhead Regional Corrections probation officer investigate Sandra Couture’s background before sentencing on May 13.
The arson and witness tampering case was developed after an investigation by the St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office with the cooperation of the Carlton County Sheriff’s Office and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
Under questioning by St. Louis County prosecutor Jessica Smith, Sandra Couture testified that she had been in a romantic relationship with Joseph Couture but lived in fear of him. She said he was a jealous and controlling man with anger issues.
She said they referred to themselves as husband and wife but were not married. She had been married to his brother.
The fire that Sandra Couture admitted to setting resulted in the destruction of a home and two vehicles and the death of two dogs. She said Joseph Couture wanted her to send a message to those who would testify against him. She said she used charcoal fluid and gasoline to start the fires. She said she didn’t think anyone was home and didn’t know the dogs were present. (Comment from Lloyd Wagner, 5-26-2014: Yeah, she was busily using charcoal fluid and gasoline to burn a house and two vehicles, never reported elsewhere in the media, and the dogs never made their presence known. They must have been soundly sleeping, the whole time. Then according to the Pine Journal article, 10-1-2012, ”On July 19, Carlton County deputies returned to the scene of the arson fire when the property owner reported that a second attempt had been made to burn items on his property. Deputies recovered the remains from several Molotov cocktails — glass bottles with accelerant and fuses in them.” According to the older version of the story, using charcoal fluid and gasoline to burn the unnamed relative’s of the unnamed witness’ house, two vehicles, plus two mute dogs wasn’t enough to sufficiently tamper with that witness, and she later went back to finish the job right, using Molotov cocktails, this time! Evidently there were no charges added for the Molotov cocktails, however.)
The judge asked if she was claiming duress for her role in the crimes. She said she was not.
The couple hatched most of their harassment plans against the witnesses while Sandra visited Joseph at the St. Louis County Jail. They developed a code system to communicate and also held up notes to each other at the jail visiting window. (Comment from Lloyd Wagner, 5-26-2014: They must have been awfully clever in their code system and in hiding their notes held up at the visiting window, because no one at the jail noticed anything amiss until AFTER the house, vehicles, and soundly sleeping dogs were burned, and the Molotov cocktails thrown.)
Sandra Couture also said that Joseph wanted her to find people to help him escape from custody during a trip from the jail to the courthouse. (Comment from Lloyd Wagner, 5-26-2014: I wonder if he told her that in code, or if he held it up in a note at the jail window. Well, it’ll come out as Couture’s case proceeds toward trial, I’m sure (wink wink).
“Witness tampering is taken very seriously, and the County Attorney’s Office will vigorously prosecute those who engage in this crime,” St. Louis County Attorney Mark Rubin said in a prepared statement, “Our system depends on the courageousness of witnesses coming forward to hold people accountable for offenses. They deserve the fullest protection under the law.” (Comment by Lloyd Wagner, 5-26-2014: I’ve already related elsewhere how I personally was treated by their system, when I came forward as a witness in this same case.)
I’d like to point out further, that usually dogs leave skeletons behind after they're burned in a house fire – but these dogs, according to the Sheriff’s and media's accounts, are “missing and presumed dead”. Evidently, they were transported directly to dog heaven.
I’d also like to point out and emphasize again that there was no account of this “arson fire” in any media, until after the Coutures were blamed for it. Usually, when there is ANY fire, anywhere, arson or otherwise, it’s reported in the news the morning after. This fire, however, wasn’t reported anywhere, until AFTER the Sheriff had “broken the secret code”, figured out who dunnit, and arrested them. Was the fire classified information, or what? Why would the local media not report that a fire had occurred, and where it had occurred?
One more thing I’d like to point out: The State of Minnesota keeps detailed records on fires that occur in the state, including "incendiary fires", a class that includes ALL fires started by humans, whether by accident, or by arson.
There is a pdf. file which can be found on Google, called “Fire in Minnesota, 2012 - Minnesota Department of Public Safety”, and on page 25 of that publication, I quote the total damage for ALL incendiary fire incidents in Carlton County in 2012 =
7 total incidents, with a total damage of $8,600.
(Snagit image of the applicable part of that page is below.)
Awfully strange, it seems to me, that this supposed Couture arson fire, which was never reported in the media, and which supposedly burned a house plus 2 vehicles, plus two dogs which disappeared into thin air, plus the damage from 6 OTHER incendiary events, totaled only $8,600.
That must have been a pretty junky house, eh? I’d like to see a picture of it, but we can’t have a picture of it, of course, because if that address were released to the public, that might let the Coutures know whose house they had burned, and put that witness in danger. Evidently, the Coutures didn't know whose house they were burning, they just talked "in code" about burning some house, and Sandra just hit on the witness' relatives house by sheer luck. That's why the Sheriff has to keep the identity of the house secret!! All of this might make perfect sense to a rather stupid 6th grader who's watched too much TV, I suppose ...
There are many other anomalies in this case, which I will get to as soon as I can.
Please stay tuned.
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