Shooting report specifies drug use

On the night of his shooting spree, Joseph Patrick Lamoureux was on at least 14 different drugs, including anxiety pills, steroids and anti-depressants that Veterans Affairs doctors had prescribed for combat stress and respiratory problems.

When a detective read the charges against him more than 12 hours after the early morning spree, the soldier slumped over and cried.

"Pat did not have a clue what happened," his wife, Sue, said Friday.

The drugs are listed and the incident with the detective is described in a 14-page Nye County sheriff's report released this month, more than a year after the Sept. 19, 2008, shooting spree at Terrible's Lakeside RV Park and Casino in Pahrump.

Sue Lamoureux has said her husband snapped, distraught over the loss of a fellow soldier and as a result of nightmarish flashbacks of a suicide bomber attack.

His attorneys contend the drugs intended to ease his pain affected his ability to reason, causing him to spiral out of control. His is among four recent cases in Southern Nevada involving veterans who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, and committed violent acts.

The spree left Lamoureux and Deputy Eric Murphy with non-life-threatening gunshot wounds. Both were airlifted for treatment 60 miles east to University Medical Center in Las Vegas.

Lamoureux's attorneys have said they intend to show that the shooting spree was triggered by his bout with PTSD from his Iraq war experience months after the 2003 invasion.

The drugs he was taking included Lorazepam for anxiety, Trazadone for depression "and sleep," and a steroid, Prednisone. The others were mostly for respiratory problems that had developed during his deployment.

Sue Lamoureux, citing his medical records, said her husband was taking 4 milligrams daily of Lorazepam, 100 milligrams daily of Trazadone and 20 milligrams daily of Prednisone. In addition, she said, he was taking 40 milligrams per day of Citalopram, an anti-depressant drug, and three other medications, making a total of 18 he was taking daily.

A list in the police report of medications he was taking numbers 14.

Pat Lamoureux's attorney, Thomas Gibson, has said any two of the medications VA doctors had prescribed "had the possibility of affecting his judgment and ability to reason."

According to the police report, Officer James Chandler and other law enforcement officers interviewed Lamoureux several hours after the shooting spree when he was transported back to Nye County's detention center from Las Vegas.

"You know why I am here," Chandler said.

Lamoureux replied, "No, I don't even know what my charges are," the report reads.

When the charges, including attempted murder and battery on a peace officer, were read, "Lamoureux slumped forward and asked if the officer he shot was OK," Chandler wrote. "I told him the officer will be OK."

After he was read his Miranda rights, "Lamoureux wanted to know if his wife was OK, and again asked if the officer would survive.

"I told him both were OK. Lamoureux still slumped forward was crying and said nothing," according to the narrative Chandler filed eight weeks after the incident.

Sue Lamoureux said the report shows that her husband doesn't remember what happened. At the time he snapped, she said, she was trying to convince him that the death of one of his fellow soldiers was a tragedy that he couldn't have prevented.

As she tried to leave their motor home that night, he grabbed her laptop computer and fired rounds from a pistol into it. After she left, sheriff's deputies arrived and he engaged them in a gunbattle.

"But when he was told what happened he had an appropriate emotional response. ... It shows there was no ill will or intent," she said.

Lamoureux, a 47-year-old former Army Reserve sergeant, pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity during his arraignment last month on attempted murder and other charges.

He faces 15 counts on various charges, including attempted murder with use of a deadly weapon, assault with a deadly weapon upon an officer and discharging a firearm into a structure or vehicle.

A charge of "intoxicated subject with a firearm" was dropped shortly after his arrest even though the report states "multiple bottles of alcoholic beverages" were found inside his mobile home where the spree began and that he had been "at Valley Bar drinking alcoholic beverages."

The report states no blood sample was collected as evidence when Lamoureux was at University Medical Center. A search warrant for Lamoureux's DNA and blood wasn't executed until many hours after the 2:30 a.m. incident and not until after he had been transported from UMC to Nye County's detention center. Two vials of blood were extracted there from his right arm.

Nye County District Attorney Bob Beckett didn't return a call regarding why the intoxicated-with-a-firearm charge had been dropped.

VA officials have declined to comment, citing privacy laws that preclude them from divulging information about Lamoureux's health care.

Other recent PTSD cases that resulted in violent acts by local veterans include the following:

• In February, Senior Airman Jason Klinkenberg, who had been treated at Nellis Air Force Base and off base for PTSD, shot and killed his wife and then himself in their North Las Vegas apartment.

• In 2005, former Army Spc. Matthew Sepi, an Iraq veteran who had sought help for PTSD, shot and killed a woman and wounded a man with an AK-47 rifle while walking to a Las Vegas convenience store to buy beer. Murder charges were dismissed after a prosecutor concluded he acted in self-defense.

• In 2004, former Persian Gulf War soldier Adam Kelley of Las Vegas shot and killed himself while on VA-prescribed medications for PTSD. His mother said the medications did not work and made him sick, and that instead of medication, he should have seen a psychiatrist on a weekly basis rather than once a month.

Contact reporter Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0308.