THE man responsible for the 2009 stabbing death of a woman in West Vancouver's Lighthouse Park has been handed a 10-and-a-half year sentence.
Alexander Lawrence LaGlace, 49, who pleaded guilty to manslaughter last year for the killing of Tammy Lynn Cordone, heard his sentence in Supreme Court on Thursday.
Because LaGlace has been in custody since his 2010 arrest, he will only serve another four years and three months. The federal government passed the Truth in Sentencing Act later that year, which formally ended the common practice of judges allowing time served in pre-trial custody to count double towards prison sentences.
Crown and defence counsel had agreed that a total sentence of 10 to 12 years less time already served would be appropriate.
LaGlace admitted to being responsible for stabbing Cordone in the chest 19 times as she lay in a tent the homeless couple were sharing in a remote area of Lighthouse Park. LaGlace later called 9-1-1 and reported finding Cordone's body, though he appeared intoxicated and emotionally flat as he denied his involvement to police. It was only after he admitted to an undercover officer posing as a crime boss that he'd killed Cordone months later that police made an arrest.
Despite taking into consideration LaGlace's past with alcoholism, drug addiction, mental illness, early childhood neglect and troubled upbringing, Justice Terry Schultes said LaGlace's moral culpability for the crime was high.
Making matters worse, toxicology tests from Cordone's blood showed she would have been conscious but severely impaired by alcohol and prescription drugs and defenceless at the time of the attack.
The two had a "fractious" relationship the judge said, but no motive for the killing ever emerged other than "she would freak out at him because she did not want to be left alone," when LaGlace wanted to busk with his guitar for money.
LaGlace had spent the better part of the 10 years prior to the crime living in a forensic psychiatric hospital in Port Coquitlam.
He had only been released six months before killing Cordone.
Despite living marginalized and homeless, Cordone's relationships with her family were no less important, and her family's suffering is no less severe, Schultes said.
Just three weeks before her death, Cordone had a lengthy and warm phone call with her sister in Ontario.
But, Schultes acknowledged that LaGlace had pleaded guilty and shown remorse for the crime.
LaGlace, who is a First Nations man, was adopted by a non-aboriginal family as an infant because of severe neglect by his birth parents. He was raised with no connection to his aboriginal culture and grew up experiencing racism and the feeling of being an outsider. He has shown an interest in reconnecting with his culture as part of rehabilitative measures in prison, the judge noted.
LaGlace has not posed any behavioural difficulties since he has been in jail, other than one incident of possibly making "home brew" in his cell - though Schultes said that may have been a case of leftover juice fermenting in its container.
LaGlace will be eligible to apply for parole after serving one-third of his remaining sentence. Crown lawyer Nicole Gregoire had requested that he not be eligible for parole until reaching the halfway mark.
