B’klyn artist slain in feud near his home
A Brooklyn artist was fatally stabbed after arguing with another man steps away from his apartment building Wednesday, police and neighbors said.
The victim, identified by neighbors as Jean Jocelyn Lareus, 48, left his apartment on E. 19th St. near Cortelyou Road in Flatbush on Wednesday morning after getting a string of text messages on his phone, neighbor Junelle Roderique said.
“He told me one said something about his mother. I couldn’t read them because they were in Creole,” she said, adding his mother died a few months ago. “And then he went outside. He said he was going to check somebody…. He said he was going outside to handle this.”
The next knock on her door was from another neighbor, telling her Lareus was dead.
Police said a man pulled a knife and repeatedly stabbed the victim about 12:30 p.m. Medics rushed him to Kings County Hospital, where he died.
There were no immediate arrests.
Another neighbor, Marie Lerebours, 70, said she believed Lareus and his attacker were best friends.
“Last night, they were arguing outside. It was over a woman,” she said. “I can’t believe it. They were such good friends.”
Lareus lived in the apartment for 17 years, and devoted most of his time to his painting,
Roderique said. Canvases could be seen stacked in his apartment.
He painted under the name “Candílo,” said Robert DiScalfani, the owner of Bond Street Studio in Gowanus, Brooklyn.
“This is a shock like I’ve never had in my life,” DiScalfani said. “I’ve been documenting him and his work for nine years now. … He was undiscovered. He was known by me and a few other people who recognized what he was all about.”
His neighbors knew him as “Eddy,” and described him as a private, talented artist who created paintings that changed under the light.
“He wasn’t in the street. He was in there painting. It is just amazing stuff,” Roderique said.
Lareus (photo) was born in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, and trained in folkloric painting there, according to a biography on a website DiScalfani created to highlight his work.
“It’s like he’s cut down now. He’s gone. He’s never going to reach what he could have been. But he’s been brilliant to begin with,” DiScalfani said. “I think everyone loses here. The world loses here.”
Lately, Lareus had been troubled, neighbors said.
“His mother died a couple of months ago of a stroke. She had cancer. His brother died a couple of weeks ago in Haiti. He was ill,” Roderique said. “He was all alone. He kept telling me he smelled death and dead bodies. He said someone close was going to die. I said, ‘Eddy, stop scaring me.’”