Adult sentence upheld in grisly 1983 murder committed by 15-year-old

TORONTO — A middle-aged man who lived an ordinary life for decades after raping and killing his frail 70-year-old neighbour deserved the adult life sentence handed him when he was finally brought to justice for the grisly crime he committed as a 15-year-old, Ontario’s highest court ruled Tuesday.

In upholding the sentence, the Court of Appeal found the punishment given Christopher Ellacott reasonable and proportionate given the savage killing.

“He sexually assaulted and murdered his elderly, vulnerable neighbour. He went on as though nothing had happened, avoiding justice for nearly 30 years,” the Appeal Court said. “There is no explanation for his crime; no sense of what motivated him to have committed so heinous an act.”

Court records show Ellacott, a high school student, occasionally did household chores for Velma Thomson, of Petrolia in southwestern Ontario, who had suffered a stroke. In mid-October 1983, the 90-pound hairdresser was found at home, partly nude and lying in a pool of blood. An autopsy found several stab wounds to her heart and her jugular vein cut. She had likely been raped and sodomized, according to the records.

The case went cold for years until a random check at a fingerprinting convention allowed police to link a thumbprint from the crime scene to Ellacott. Police then secretly obtained DNA samples from him. They arrested Ellacott in 2008 in Owen Sound, Ont., and charged the working father of two, who had no convictions, with Thomson’s first-degree murder and rape.

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A jury in Sarnia, Ont., convicted him in April 2012 and in March 2013, Superior Court of Justice John Desotti sentenced the then-45-year-old as an adult, as the Crown had requested. Ellacott was given life without parole eligibility for seven years, and a lifetime supervision order.

Ellacott, who abandoned his conviction appeal, challenged the sentence. He argued he should have been punished as a youth, which means he would have received a maximum six years behind bars as opposed to the minimum seven he was given, and only a four-year period of supervision.

Desotti made several errors, Ellacott argued, among them not properly considering his age at the time of the crime, and deeming his testimony an aggravating factor.

The Appeal Court rejected the idea that he had been less morally culpable because he was 15 when he killed his victim. His blameworthiness was self-evident, the court said.

“The appellant’s conduct was no mere mistake or lapse in judgment,” the Appeal Court said. “He committed an act of extreme violence against an elderly, vulnerable neighbour, who until then had no known reason to fear him.”

The higher court did find fault with Desotti’s dim view of Ellacott’s testimony. At trial, the accused insisted the incriminating thumbprint came from a day before the crime when he helped Thomson carry a cardboard box inside the home. He also maintained the DNA wasn’t his.

The testimony, Desotti said at various points, was a “lame and cobbled contrivance” and “nonsense,” and revealed something “quite sinister” about Ellacott.

Those statements crossed the line, the Appeal Court found. Nevertheless, it declined to interfere with the sentence.

“Although the sentencing judge erred in using the appellant’s testimony and denial of guilt as aggravating factors, the error is of no consequence,” the Appeal Court said. “The enormity of (Ellacott’s) crime renders a youth sentence manifestly inadequate to hold (him) accountable.”

Colin Perkel, The Canadian Press