Ex-Marine, 22, Claims Accomplice Set Up Robbery, Killing of Man, 82

An Oceanside man accused of killing an elderly Vista man testified Friday that another man set up the robbery that led to the murder.

Larry LaFleur, 22, of Oceanside, testified as the last defense witness in his trial involving the Jan. 10 fatal shooting of Swan Otto Bloomquist, 82, whose bullet-riddled body was found on Camp Pendleton five days later.

Final arguments are scheduled for Wednesday.

LaFleur insisted that co-defendant Nick Holm, 20, of Fallbrook, came up with the idea to rob an elderly person at a Carlsbad shopping mall.

LaFleur was a Marine stationed at Camp Pendleton until being discharged in November. The Naval Investigative Service, however, did not reveal the circumstances of his discharge.

Pleaded Guilty

Holm last week pleaded guilty to murdering Bloomquist and faces a life term when he is sentenced Aug. 21.

“He kept bringing it (the robbery) up. It became almost a daily thing,” said LaFleur.

But on cross-examination by Assistant U.S. Atty. Larry Burns, LaFleur acknowledged that he also engaged in the discussion with Holm about robbing an elderly person the night before. LaFleur described those discussions as “a dream.”

“Mr. Holm had brought up (the subject of) shooting someone or killing someone in an isolated canyon,” said LaFleur.

LaFleur also admitted that it was he who first showed a gun to the startled Bloomquist when encountering him in his parked car in the mall while he was waiting for his wife, Nora Bloomquist, 84, who was shopping.

Also Armed

“I said, ‘Please scoot over,’ ” LaFleur recounted. He said he ordered Bloomquist to unlock the other car door to let Holm inside, who also was armed.

LaFleur said Bloomquist complained of chest pains after the pair kidnaped him and begged them to rob him of his money and his car but leave him unharmed. He said Bloomquist cited his concern for his wife and how she would feel when finding the car and him missing.

LaFleur said he was “scared” of Holm and described him as the leader of the crime.

But under Burns’ questioning, LaFleur acknowledged that he had not felt fear of Holm, who was sitting in the back seat, as he drove Bloomquist to the isolated DeLuz Canyon on Camp Pendleton property where the body was later found.

LaFleur said he “guessed” that Holm would have shot him had he refused to go along with the plan.

He denied being under the influence of drugs at the time of the shooting, though admitted he had sold drugs on the street in the past.

After the killing, he, Holm, and his new girlfriend, Wendy Favors, traveled to Oregon in Bloomquist’s car to start a new life, said LaFleur.

He said he was following “the dream of starting a family with Nick, Wendy, and I.”

But those plans were shattered when Holm discovered that a trailer he thought the three could live in had been moved. They instead moved into a motel.

However, Holm disappeared after telling the couple that he wanted to go out and buy a newspaper and some cigarettes. At 3 a.m. the next morning, they discovered Bloomquist’s car missing, along with LaFleur’s property in it, LaFleur said.

Even after Holm, who was always armed, disappeared, LaFleur said he could not bring himself to report what had happened.

“He had became a family member to me, though we had done something awful,” LaFleur said.

Wanted to Return

Favors wanted to return to where her mother lived in Escondido so they hitchhiked to Emeryville from Roseburg, Ore., and her mother sent her a plane ticket, he said.

LaFleur got a bus ticket from a sympathetic police officer in Emeryville to Oceanside, and he was arrested without incident three or four days later.

Judge William Enright told the attorneys after the jury was excused for the long holiday weekend that he would probably permit a limited “diminished capacity” defense that could produce a verdict less than first-degree murder.