Notorious Vancouver killer back behind bars
Witnesses say Andy Bruce was masturbating at bus stop
Forty-six years after he murdered a North Vancouver woman in front of her seven-year-old daughter, one of B.C.’s most notorious killers is back behind bars because of alleged crimes committed while out on parole.
Andy Bruce, now 68, was arrested in Vancouver on Nov. 4 after witnesses reported seeing him masturbating at a bus stop near Broadway and Kingsway.
When confronted, police allege, Bruce pulled out a can of pepper spray and waved it at the bystanders, although police say he didn’t press the trigger. He’s charged with committing an indecent act, assault with a weapon and possessing a weapon for a dangerous purpose.
Vancouver police spokesman Const. Brian Montague said he wasn’t aware of Bruce’s history, but the picture became clearer as he read through the long list of convictions in the arrest report.
“It’s a very long report,” Montague said. “Yeah, he’s a bad dude.”
Bruce was granted full parole in 2010, despite repeatedly breaking the terms of his day parole and a violent history inside prison that includes one of the most famous escape attempts in B.C.
His parole has now been suspended pending a Parole Board of Canada hearing in January.
The convicted murderer was sentenced to life in prison in 1970, after a contract killing reportedly commissioned over one ounce of heroin. He shot the young female victim twice, only stopping when the gun jammed, according to documents from the Parole Board of Canada. Even though the woman’s daughter witnessed the murder and identified him, Bruce has always denied being the gunman.
Bruce is a residential school survivor with a tragic upbringing that included physical and sexual abuse. He was 20 at the time of the contract killing, but he had already been convicted of two bank robberies, car theft and an armed robbery at a grocery story.
He also had two indecent assault charges for sex attacks on strangers, including one in which a young woman had her lip torn off.
But the life sentence for murder didn’t put an end to Bruce’s crimes. Once inside a prison cell, he continued to rack up the convictions, with charges ranging from armed robbery to attempted murder and attempted extortion.
During the 1970s, he was described as “one of the most dangerous inmates within the prison system,” according to parole board documents. As late as 2000, guards received information that Bruce had been contracted to kill another prisoner.
He was involved in several prison escape attempts and five hostage takings — he stabbed a guard during a 1972 escape attempt and held three guards hostage in 1973.
Even journalists were entangled in his hostage-taking schemes. In 1976, he and two other inmates took two guards hostage. The prisoners struck a deal to let their captives go, but one of the conditions of the release was that Province reporter Don Hunter and photographer Colin Price visit the cellblock to interview them and take their photos. The standoff ended when the story made it to print.
But the most famous of Bruce’s escape attempts took place in 1975 when he and two other prisoners at the B.C. Penitentiary took more than a dozen hostages, including a social worker named Mary Steinhauser. When armed officers stormed the prison after a 41-hour standoff, Bruce grabbed Steinhauser to use as a human shield.
The 32-year-old woman was killed in the gunfire. Bruce was shot twice, but survived.
Bruce’s full parole was conditional on his attending psychological counselling and abstaining from using drugs and alcohol. The parole board decision notes that he had made “significant changes” to his attitude and behaviour in recent years, suggesting a decreased risk of violence — as long as he stayed sober.
But despite the sexual nature of some of his past crimes, psychologists who interviewed Bruce in 2003 and 2008 agreed that it wasn’t necessary for him to participate in any programs related to sexual violence. Full parole was granted even though Bruce’s previous day parole had been suspended six times because he was caught using drugs or alcohol.
Bruce’s next court appearance is scheduled for Dec. 20.
“It’s a very long (arrest) report. Yeah, he’s a bad dude” — CONST. BRIAN MONTAGUE VANCOUVER POLICE