Suspect was quiet, friendly, says neighbour

FREDERICTON • Linda Nason will never look at the apartment unit opposite hers the same way.

Now sealed with a piece of plywood where the door used to be, it’s the apartment unit where Matthew Raymond lived for the past four months, she said.

Raymond, 48, has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder in last Friday’s shooting that claimed the lives of Fredericton police constables Lawrence Robert Costello and Sara Burns as well as Donald Robichaud and Bobbie Lee Wright.

“It’s very hard to walk in here but this has been my home for 20 years and I’m not moving,” said Nason, who returned to her apartment in on Brookside Drive on Tuesday morning.

Like dozens of residents in the apartment block, Nason was evacuated from her home early Friday morning after shots rang out. The residents were allowed to return Tuesday morning.

She said she was still in shock by the events that day, and just as shocked that her “likable” neighbour, who was quiet and friendly to her, could be suspected of such a monstrous act.

“Sometimes I would be coming out to go to work or coming home and he’d be just arriving on his bike and I’d hold the door for him and we exchanged pleasantries” Nason said.

“We weren’t best buddies but just talked about the weather and a few things like that,” she said.

From a grassy courtyard in the middle of the four apartment buildings, bullet holes could be seen in the windows of A Building — directly opposite to C Building.

Nason said a patch of asphalt behind D building that appeared recently sprayed with tar was not there before the shooting.

Where Nason said Raymond lived in C Building, no glass remains in the windows. From the courtyard, a cooler and a bicycle could be seen inside.