Friends Recount Night Before Man Killed His Parents

Keith and Elizabeth Theriot, also known as Stretch and Lee, were two of the five people gunned down in a deadly shooting on Jan. 26. Two of their closest friends and roommates give us a glimpse into their lives.

“Awesome people. Never met any kind of stranger. They loved everybody,” said Kim Mincks, roommate and longtime friend. 

Mincks says the couple was outgoing and loved music.

“He wrote his own music, he wrote his own songs, and then he would sing covers and he enjoyed it, you can tell by his face he just enjoyed it,” said Mincks.

Sadly, that passion is now gone forever. Minks says things were fine the night before the shooting, but things took a devastating turn the next morning.

“I woke up with the cops in my room. They just said something terrible has happened, get dressed. I got dressed and they walked me outside,” said Mincks.

Mincks says she was asleep when Dakota Theriot killed his parents. She says she believes Dakota did not know she was in the room because her truck was not at the residence.

If my truck would have been here, he would have come in room and shot me,” said Mincks.

The roommates say things were fine before Dakota moved in just a month before the shooting. They say the 21-year old, who struggled with keeping jobs and possible drug addiction, would often lash out at his father.

“He would fight with his dad, not so much his mom, but his dad, he would take everything out on his dad,” said Mincks.

“One time, I had to cut in to help get him off of them,” said Jacob Chastant, another roommate. “He was trying to get Dakota to do good, to like have a job and work and be by himself, but Dakota wanted to do what he wanted to do.”

Mincks and Chastant say the hardest step now is finding peace and forgiving Dakota.