Barbecue brouhaha over steaks ends in bloody murder
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A beef over barbecue steaks turned deadly when one of the guests allegedly had an appetite for murder.
Cops say Andrew Horsman, 41, “seemingly snapped” over the slabs of meat and stabbed his mother’s longtime boyfriend 17 times and then doused him in lighter fluid and tried to set him ablaze.
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Horsman freaked on 66-year-old Paul Pomerleau at his Middleborough, Mass., home on Saturday.
There had been long-standing animosity between Horsman and Pomerleau, cops said. It wasn’t clear what the meat of the matter was over the steaks.
But Horsman snapped and allegedly stalked Pomerleau and stabbed him, prosecutor Nicole Piacentini Lawson said during the suspected killer’s arraignment hearing Monday. After leaving Pomerleau bloody, he poured a gallon of lighter fluid on his mother’s longtime beau but failed to ignite him.
Another relative tried to intervene.
Horsman tried to dine and dash but was nabbed by cops not far from the scene. Pomerleau died in the hospital an hour after the attack.
“I’ve known him [Horsman] for 30 years. And I’ll tell you, he was like a gentle giant,” neighbor Jeff Burr told WBZ-TV. “He was a great guy. He’d give you the shirt off his back. You know, he really would.”
The suspect had reportedly been living with his mother and Pomerleau. The older man had been deeply critical about Horsman not having a job and still living with his mom.
But Horsman’s lawyer Joshua Wood claims his client’s explosion was the result of years of unaddressed domestic violence.
“These people knew each other. There was a long relationship here, and I think that’s important, and the history wasn’t always peaceful. I think when the story fully comes out, it’ll be clear that this wasn’t a random act of violence, as the Commonwealth suggested, but frankly a response to years of suffering,” Wood said.
Exactly what aspect of the steaks sparked the bloodshed was not revealed by detectives.
The dead man’s twin brother, Peter, said Pomerleau, “basically raised” Horsman, who has pleaded not guilty. He is back in court on July 28.
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