There's a report that a Canadian who was killed in Florida on Thursday was gunned down after he failed to produce a cellphone for the man who shot him.

Ovila Plante,76, spoke little English and likely didn't know what William De Jesus wanted when he knocked on the door of the Quebecer's motor home.

The Broward Sheriff's Office has said De Jesus started yelling and Plante pushed him away. De Jesus then pulled out a gun and shot Plante twice.

De Jesus then forced his wife and two young sons out of his car and herded them into the mobile home starting a six hour stand-off with police.

The Palm Beach Post News reported on its website Saturday that Plante's girlfriend, Quebecer Pierrette Beauchemin,  was in the mobile home and did understand that De Jesus was demanding a phone to call 911. Beauchemin's daughter Joanne Beauchemin, 49, spoke to the newspaper.

De Jesus grabbed a cell phone belonging to Beauchemin and tried to dial 911, but instead hit a button that dialled Joanne Beauchemin.

"If your mom does whatever I say, I'm not going to hurt her," Joanne told the newspaper, adding at that point her mother, who is in her 70s, was put on the line.

"She said, 'This is real. He has a gun to my head and a knife to my throat,'" said Joanne Beauchemin.

Beauchemin said her mother managed to escape and ran to the authorities who had surrounded the RV Park in this community 30 kilometres north of Fort Lauderdale that is popular with Canadian snowbirds.

Hours later police stormed the mobile home. They found the bodies of De Jesus and his nine-year-old son. The man's wife and other son, 7, were seriously injured, but were expected to survive police said.

The bizarre attack still has many neighbourhood residents dazed.

"He could have knocked on any door," Michel Emard, 57, told the newspaper. "Everyone is telling themselves, 'It could have happened to me.'"