Murder suspect Sheila LaBarre's ex-husband said she asked him to kill a chiropractor with whom they were living, so they could inherit his Epping horse farm, according to a letter he said he sent to state police.
LaBarre, 47, was arrested in April and charged with killing and burning the body of 24-year-old Kenneth Countie, formerly of Wilmington, Mass. She pleaded not guilty at her arraignment yesterday morning in Rockingham County Superior Court.
Chiropractor Wilfred LaBarre died at age 74 in 2000, leaving his estate to Sheila LaBarre over his family's objections. Sheila LaBarre claimed to be the chiropractor's common-law wife and took his last name but was married to Wayne Ennis for about 16 months of the time.
Ennis, 30, said he was living on Wilfred LaBarre's horse farm in 1996 when LaBarre asked him to get in the car one night and drove around the back roads of Epping, he wrote in a letter addressed to state police.
LaBarre told Ennis she wished a horse would kick Wilfred LaBarre in the head and kill him, that she'd thought of strangling him herself and that she wanted Ennis to kill him. Ennis said he was afraid to say no, according to the letter.
"I did not want to say 'No' and have her turn on me. When she is like that, I don't trust her," Ennis wrote. "I hesitate. It just can't come out. I can't do that. I am not a murderer and Dr. LaBarre is like a father to me."
State police investigators could not be reached Tuesday to confirm receiving the letter. Jeffrey Denner, LaBarre's Boston-based lawyer, did not return a call seeking comment.
LaBarre filed to divorce Ennis, who now lives in St. Elizabeth, Jamaica, in December 1996. The divorce records depict Ennis as an abuser and show that LaBarre got a restraining order against him, but Ennis said in letters to a local newspaper that she was the abuser.
He said she hit, shoved and fired guns at him and others, and often refused to let him use the telephone, burned his clothes and forced him to spend nights outside during the winter.
"She had a handgun with her all the time -- she points the gun at me and shoot(s) over my head and told me she is going to send me back to Jamaica in a box," Ennis wrote. "I was ashamed to let anyone know I was living like this in America."
When their arguments grew heated, he refused to strike her, Ennis wrote, but that made her angrier.
"She would rip her clothes off and strike herself and then she would smile at me and then call the police," he wrote. "She said the court is not going to believe a black negro over a white American woman."
Ennis said the real reason for the divorce was that he caught LaBarre with another man one night. He said he tried several times to leave LaBarre, but always ended up returning. One time, Wilfred LaBarre tried to help him, he wrote.
Wilfred LaBarre told him Sheila LaBarre was "crazy and she will kill me (Ennis), so he gave me money and (took) me to the bus station."
Ennis was deported in 2002 for overstaying his work permit. He said investigators have not contacted him, but he would like to testify against LaBarre.
Senior Assistant State Attorney General Peter Odom, the prosecutor handling the Countie case, said he was curious to see the letters provided to a local newspaper.
"Anything a potential witness has to say -- even if it's deep background for a case -- we're very interested in what they have to say," Odom said.
Merrimack Valley
October 5, 2006
Ex-husband says LaBarre asked him to murder chiropractor
- Merrimack Valley
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