Man who beat 87-year-old Vancouver woman to death gets 18 years

Nicholas Dwayne Wallace, 24, has been sentenced to 18 years in prison for the November 2018 slaying of Elizabeth Mary Poulin. Arlen Redekop / PNG


A man who beat an 87-year-old Vancouver woman to death after breaking into her apartment while she was asleep has been sentenced to 18 years in jail.

In December, Nicholas Dwayne Wallace, 24, pleaded guilty to one count of manslaughter in connection with the November 2018 slaying of Elizabeth Mary Poulin. He’d initially been charged with second-degree murder.

In imposing sentence of Wallace on Friday, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Douglas Thompson accepted a joint submission from Crown counsel Mark Myhre and defence lawyer John Turner calling for the lengthy jail term.

The judge noted that sentences for manslaughter result in a notoriously wide range of sentences because the underlying facts can range from near accident to near murder.

“This case is near murder,” said the judge.

Thompson added that notwithstanding the fact Wallace was a young man who had pleaded guilty and giving significant weight to the offender’s Aboriginal background, a sentence at the high end of the range was necessary to protect the public and adequately denounce the “brutal” killing of an elderly woman in her own apartment.

Court heard that prior to the slaying, Wallace’s son had recently been born into a chaotic household where substance abuse and domestic conflict was rampant and the newborn had been apprehended.

At the time of the killing, Wallace had separated from his son’s mother and had relapsed into a crystal meth habit.

He was on bail on other charges and had been living in a residential addiction facility when he relapsed again and on the day of the slaying, he consumed a large quantity of vodka and had been drinking beer and smoking fentanyl.

A resident of a rooming house not far from where Poulin lived was awoken by Wallace standing naked in the doorway of her bedroom.

Wallace sat down in a living room chair, staring and mumbling and soon fled the scene. The woman in the house discovered later that Wallace had showered and left behind his wet clothes.

A few minutes later, Wallace broke into Poulin’s apartment at 3136 Kingsway through a rear patio door, beat her severely, including multiple times in the head, with the base of a garden decoration found in a planter on her balcony.

He took some cheques and some credit and bank cards with him when he left the apartment.

Several family members, including Poulin’s two daughters and a granddaughter, provided victim impact statements describing the devastating effect the killing had on them.

The judge quoted from the granddaughter’s statement, who noted her grandmother had been through “so much,” having served in the Canadian military and being a single mother who raised two daughters as well as battling chronic health conditions.

“She was the strongest person I’ve known and she deserved so much more than to die like this,” said the granddaughter’s statement. “I will never understand why this happened to her. I will never understand the merciless violence that one stranger could inflict on another.”

Noting that it was a case of “cascading tragedies,” the judge referred to a so-called Gladue report prepared for the court that outlined Wallace’s Aboriginal upbringing.

At least five generations of Wallace’s family had attended residential schools and subsequently struggled with unresolved trauma.

“His childhood was marked by family breakdown, neglect and physical abuse,” said the judge. “His substance abuse began when he was very young and continued more or less unabated.”

The accused, wearing red prison clothing, sat quietly in the prisoner’s dock during the sentencing. His mother and grandmother sat in the public gallery.

Wallace, who has been in custody since his arrest, will have his sentenced reduced by about 22 months after receiving credit for pre-sentence custody.

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