Tim Leeds Havre Daily News tleeds@havredailynews.com
The sister of a man murdered in Havre in 2006 said Wednesday that the people who killed her brother should understand one thing the man they assaulted and killed was not a homeless transient, not a vagrant. Lloyd Kvelstad was a man with a history, a home, a family, she said. “People think that he was a person who didn’t have a family, and that isn’t true. He did have a family ,” said Joyce Metcalf, Kvelstad’s older sister. “They’re going to have to live with that for the rest of their life.” Joyce and her brothers, Harold and McLean, have been in Havre since Nov. 11 for the trial of Kim A. Norquay Jr. Of Havre, who is charged with deliberate homicide and tampering with physical evidence in the death of Kvelstad. James J. Main Jr. Of Hays faces trial next year on a charge of deliberate homicide stemming from Kvelstad’s death. Mellissa “Missy” Snow of Havre has pleaded guilty to a charge of tampering with physical evidence in the incident and has been sentenced to three years with the state Department of Corrections. Lloyd Kvelstad was found dead at Snow’s residence two days after Thanksgiving in 2006, severely beaten and with a string tied tightly around his neck. Joyce, who plans to also attend Main’s trial, said sitting through Norquay's trial has been difficult at times, but has also helped her deal with her feelings about her brother’s death, and helped her better understand what happened that night. She said her brothers have not attended the trial. “It hit me really hard. I can’t imagine what it would do to them,” Joyce said. “They’re already in pain. They would just be in more pain. It wouldn’t help them at all.” Joyce said the lifestyle of her brother Lloyd who went by the nickname “Lucky” probably led to his death, although, at the same time, it shouldn’t have. He wandered a lot, moving from place to place and doing odd jobs, but he was a friend to everyone. “He was a nice person, he didn’t have anything against anybody,” she said. Joyce said she and Lloyd, who was Born in North Dakota on Dec. 2, 1968, were close when they were younger, but drifted apart as they grew older. That was mostly because of his choice of lifestyle, she said. While she, Harold and McLean found professions and careers, working regular jobs, Lloyd wouldn’t settle down, Joyce said. He liked to drift from odd job to odd job, sometimes within their home town, sometimes moving to different areas, only to return weeks or months later to visit them, his mother, Yvonne, and his children. “That is so unlike me and my brothers,” she said. “He was more of a carefree, happygo- lucky person.” His wandering nature did not exclude him from his family, she added, including his children. Lloyd would see his children, Braden and Taysha St. Claire, now 10 and 9, whenever he was in town, Joyce said. The mother of his children, Rita St. Claire Ibetta, had remarried after she and Lloyd split up, but he still would visit his children regularly. “He would pick them up and take them to the park,” Joyce said. “He wasn’t a man of money, but he did what he could. “He was very good to his kids,” she added. “They don't have one bad thing to say about their dad.” Joyce said that during and after high school his happy-golucky attitude led him to hang around with a different sort of people, people that many might consider a bad crowd. That included many who didn’t have regular jobs, people who liked to drink and party, and people who liked to move around, she said. The groups he hung out with often included many Native Americans their culture appealed to him, Joyce said. “He was not a racist about anyone,” she said. That led to confusion when the report of his death came in witnesses have said that an argument that may have led to the assault that killed Kvelstad was over Christopher Columbus discovering the New World, Thanksgiving and the American Indian Movement. Joyce said her brother being killed over a racially motivated argument is unbelievable. Joyce said that when Rita who is Native American heard that the beating and strangulation may have been racially motivated, she could not understand. “When she found this out she was very upset,” Joyce said. “She said, Why would they kill him? He was one of us. ’” “It was very hard for her. It is still is very hard for her,” Joyce said. Many of Lloyd’s Native American friends from North Dakota came and spoke at his funeral, she added. The entire family is still having a hard time dealing with Lloyd’s death, two years later. Joyce said it is especially hard for Harold, who was closest to Lloyd. While on the road, Lloyd kept in close contact with Harold, she said, calling him or writing every week or two. Harold received Lloyd’s last letter just a couple of days after the family had received word that he had died, Joyce said. Lloyd had apparently mailed it just a few days before his death. Harold opened the letter with the rest of the family members in the room, she added. “He opened it as a group, with all of us there,” Joyce said. “It was very hard.” Harold still has all of Lloyd’s possessions at his house in unopened boxes, she added. The timing of the death was also hard to deal with, Joyce said. Lloyd’s body arrived back home on Dec. 2, 2006, what would have been his 38th birthday. “That was really hard. It was his birthday, and he was in a casket,” Joyce said. “He was beyond recognition, so we had to have a closed casket. “It did not look like him. I thought it was a stranger,” she added. Joyce said one of the most difficult parts of her brother’s death is that he didn’t even have to be in Havre. Her family all wanted him to stay home; Harold regularly asked Lloyd to come and stay with him, she said. Lloyd seemed to think his staying was a burden on the family it wasn’t, Joyce said, but he seemed to think so. His wandering lifestyle led to distancing her relationship with Lloyd, but she still loved him, Joyce added. “I knew where he stood and he knew where I stood,” she said. “You can’t force someone to do something. “You kind of feel helpless but there’s nothing else you can do,” Joyce added. “Regardless of what our differences were, we always loved him and didn’t want anything bad to happen to him, and, of course, it did. “I guess his nickname didn’t come true.”
