Carlsbad

A 23-year-old Oceanside man convicted of kidnaping and killing an elderly Vista man at Camp Pendleton was sentenced Thursday to life in federal prison without the possibility of parole.

Larry LaFleur wiped away tears during the two-hour hearing before U. S. District Judge William Enright, who noted that the defendant had also cried during his trial while testifying in July about the Jan. 10 slaying of Swan Otto Bloomquist, 82.

“I don’t think I see the same Larry LaFleur that Mr. Bloomquist saw as he prayed and begged for his life in that remote canyon on the Camp Pendleton Marine Base,” said the judge.

“You had no intention of having him leave that clearing alive,” declared Enright. “I don’t know of any more cold-blooded killing than this. The way he was killed, I wouldn’t kill an animal.”

According to testimony at the trial, LaFleur pulled a gun on Bloomquist while Bloomquist was waiting in his car for his wife, Nora, in a Carlsbad shopping center parking lot.

Co-defendant Nick Holm, 20, of Fallbrook, who will be sentenced Monday, also pulled a gun, and he and LaFleur took Bloomquist to a remote area of the base.

LaFleur told authorities that Bloomquist begged for his life and fell down on his knees in prayer when LaFleur shot him in the chest. Holm then shot the retired farmer in the head, and three more shots were fired into his body.

LaFleur was convicted July 7 of first-degree murder, conspiracy to kidnap, kidnaping, robbery and three counts of using a weapon during a kidnaping or violent crime.