A man who pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the death of an elderly Vancouver woman during a home invasion should spend eight years in prison, a B.C. Supreme Court judge heard March 4.
Sandy Jack Parisian pleaded guilty to manslaughter last year in the death of 78-year-old Usha Singh.
Singh, who lived alone, was found badly beaten in her house on Jan. 31, 2021.
She was taken to hospital but died of her injuries several days later.
The Vancouver Police Department has said two men posing as police officers gained entry to Singh’s Little Mountain home early that morning.
Justice Kathleen Ker heard sentencing submissions from Crown prosecutors Joseph Zondervan and Jacinta Lawton in a hearing expected to last three days.
Defence lawyer Adrian Picard has yet to make his submissions to Ker.
Any sentence Parisian receives would be reduced with credit for time served while awaiting trial.
As evidence was presented, including video of events, Parisian, clad in red prison sweats, rocked backward and forward.
Parisian and co-accused Pascal Jean Claude Bouthillete were arrested on Feb. 3, 2021 and have remained in custody.
At the time of his arrest, police said Parisian had been living in a homeless camp near Vancouver’s Strathcona Park.
In a Glacier Media interview prior to the incident, Parisian had styled himself the mayor of Oppenheimer Park, the scene of a large homeless camp.
Bouthilette is scheduled to go on trial by a judge sitting without a jury for first-degree murder on May 27, 2024.
Glacier Media is not publishing evidence from Parisian’s current proceedings so as not to taint Bouthillette’s trial.
