A 28-year-old Florida man is facing a second-degree murder charge after authorities say he shot his best friend and roommate in the back of the head following a petty argument over vaping, then spent more than four hours with the body before dialing emergency services.
Elisha Christopher Landry was arrested this week in connection with the April 17 death of 34-year-old Shaun Allen Hennigh at a residence on the 5100 block of Tangerine Avenue South in Gulfport, according to a probable cause affidavit from the Gulfport Police Department.
Officers responded at 5:04 a.m. after Landry called 911 and told the dispatcher, “my best friend’s shot in the garage.” When asked whether the victim had shot himself, Landry replied, “I’m not sure,” and claimed he had been sitting with the body for “30 f—ing minutes.” Neighbors, however, reported hearing a single gunshot and a car alarm at 12:32 a.m. — nearly four and a half hours earlier.
When first responders arrived, they found Hennigh lying on the garage floor, cold to the touch, with rigor mortis already setting in and dried blood footprints visible throughout the scene, according to the WKRG.
Landry’s account of what happened shifted repeatedly under questioning. He initially said Hennigh had come home “irate” and the two went to the garage to smoke a cigarette. He later claimed the shooting happened while the two were “play-fighting” near the driveway, alleging Hennigh grabbed a 9mm handgun from Landry’s waistband holster while they were “acting a little bit silly.”
When an officer asked whether Hennigh had held the gun to his own head, Landry snapped: “No dude! We were just twisting around.” Moments later, he reversed course entirely, saying, “He didn’t grab it out of my holster.” In a subsequent station interview, when asked how the gun discharged, Landry simply shook his head and told detectives, “I can’t tell you.”
Physical evidence contradicted his story. Despite claiming he cradled his dying friend for up to 30 minutes, forensic examiners found only a minimal amount of blood on Landry’s jeans — difficult to reconcile with the large pool of blood at the scene. Blood smears were also consistent with a body being dragged from outside the garage inward. Before police arrived, Landry reportedly changed his clothing, pulling jeans over the shorts he had been wearing during the incident.
Investigators also discovered that Landry’s mother — a licensed travel nurse with over a decade of medical experience — was inside the home throughout the entire four-and-a-half-hour window. Landry allegedly never woke her or asked her to provide emergency assistance to his stricken friend.
According to Landry’s girlfriend, the confrontation began upstairs, where Landry became enraged after finding Hennigh “vaping inside the house.” After the argument, Hennigh went downstairs to the garage, and Landry followed — with a 9mm handgun tucked in his waistband.
The two men also had a turbulent financial history. Text messages recovered from Hennigh’s phone showed that Landry had evicted him as recently as January, forcing him to “couch surf” because he was “inconsistent with paying his portion of the bills.”
An autopsy ruled the death a homicide, caused by a single intermediate-range gunshot wound to the back of the head, with the bullet traveling on an upward trajectory.
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