21-year-old Dakota Theriot has been arrested in Virginia. Theriot is suspected of murdering five people – including his parents and his girlfriend and her family – in two separate shootings in Louisiana.
Theriot is the “prime suspect” in the murder of his parents, Keith and Elizabeth Theriot, who were killed in their trailer on Saturday morning, Ascension Parish Sheriff office announced, noting that responding officers were able to interview one of the victims before they died. After murdering his parents, the 21-year-old went on to kill three more people inside another mobile home in Livingston Parish.
“After speaking with their detectives for quite a while we came to realize that these two cases indeed may be related. We feel that they are related,” Ascension Parish Sheriff Bobby Webre told reporters at an afternoon press conference.
After interviewing witnesses, authorities believe the shootings stemmed from a “boyfriend [and] girlfriend type of dispute.” According to some reports, one of the victims at the second shooting site was dating the suspect.
Authorities in Louisiana tracked Theriot's vehicle to the state line with Mississippi, and he was later arrested in Virginia by the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office on Sunday. He will be brought back to Ascension Parish and booked on two counts of first-degree murder, home invasion, and illegal use of weapons.
“This is probably one of the worst domestic violence [incidents] I’ve seen in quite a while,” Webre said. “For a young man to walk into a bedroom and kill his mother and his father, and then kill friends in Livingston that he had a connection with.”
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