‘It was very hard on her:’ Woman assaulted in 2014 alley attack dies
PRINCE ALBERT, SASK. — A woman who lost both her legs and much of her eyesight after she was viciously attacked and set on fire in a back alley more than three years ago has died.
Linda Lavallee, a friend of Marlene Bird, said the 50-year-old Indigenous woman died Monday at a hospital in Prince Albert, Sask.
Lavallee said Bird entered hospital on Nov. 20, went into a coma on Wednesday and never regained consciousness after suffering heart, liver and kidney failure.
Lavallee said Bird had forgiven Leslie Black, the man who attacked and sexually assaulted her. But she was upset over the 16-year prison term he received in September, and the stress of the case and its outcome affected her health.
Friends saw what was happening to her and convinced her to go to hospital.
“It was very hard on her, even though she forgave (Black),” said Lavallee, a resident of Chilliwack, B.C. “She thought the amount of time that guy was going to get was never enough for the amount of pain she went through.
“She was really hurt and couldn’t accept it.”
Lavallee said Bird turned to alcohol to help her cope, but in the month before her death she and her partner, Patrick Lavallee, Linda’s brother, resolved to stay sober.
Bird and Lavallee lived in the hamlet of Timber Bay, about 1 ½ hours north of Prince Albert, where Patrick, 54, provided roundthe-clock care for his partner.
“He’s quite lost now,” said Lavallee, who described Bird as a fighter, who always thought of others first.
“Nothing kept her down, even with no legs. If she wanted to do something, she did it.”
Bird’s two daughters, both in their 20s, are in Prince Albert, but Lavallee said they could not be immediately contacted to let them know about their mother’s death.
Black pleaded guilty in April to attempted murder in the June 2014 beating, burning and sexual assault. The court was told that after the attack, he walked to a nearby convenience store and bought candy. Black then walked past Bird, who was still on fire, and ignored her.
It was several hours before she was discovered, barely alive, and with burns so severe they exposed her facial bones. One foot was attached only by a piece of skin.
The Crown had argued for life in prison, while the defence asked for 15 years.
Before he learned his fate, Black made eye contact with Bird in the courtroom and said he was “truly sorry.” The judge, saying Black’s risk to reoffend could be managed in the community, had ruled the previous month not to designate him a dangerous offender.
A memorial service was planned for Monday in Prince Albert. Bird was to be buried next to her grandmother in the northern Saskatchewan community of Molanosa.