Crown seeks to delay parole eligibility for man who killed mother
A Vancouver man who murdered his mother should spend between 12 and 15 years in prison before he can apply for parole, a prosecutor argued Tuesday.
In June, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Joyce DeWitt-Van Oosten found Brian Whitlock, 30, guilty of the November 2014 seconddegree murder of his mother, Barbara Whitlock, 61.
The main issue at a sentencing hearing for Whitlock on Tuesday was how Whitlock’s mental illness should be assessed in arriving at a fit sentence.
In his sentencing submissions, Crown counsel Elliot Poll noted that Whitlock, who has a prior diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, currently denies he suffers from any such illness and won’t avail himself of any treatment.
He said those facts amount to an aggravating factor on sentencing and argued that Whitlock poses a high risk to reoffend.
Poll said there was no evidence of a connection between Whitlock’s illness and the brutal murder.
Second-degree murder carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison with between 10 and 25 years of parole ineligibility.
The Crown argued that the accused’s parole ineligibility should be at the high end of between 12 and 15 years.
In a victim impact statement filed in court, Warren Clare, the husband of the victim, noted that the slaying was “any family’s worst nightmare,” a parent being killed by one of their offspring.
“As a husband I had cared for and watched my first wife suffer and ultimately lose her battle with cancer, then I found Barb, a new love and someone to share my life with,” said Clare’s statement.
“After only a few short years together, to experience loss once again in such a heinous and unthinkable way ... I don’t have the words to describe.”
Troy Anderson, a lawyer for Whitlock, noted that his client will get a life sentence, will be forced to earn his release and will only be released if the parole board is satisfied he is no longer a danger.
He said it was not a case where his client had always refused to accept his illness and argued that there was a link between Whitlock’s illness and prior conduct and the offence.
The defence lawyer, who said that Whitlock should get the minimum of 10 years of parole ineligibility, pointed to the accused’s bizarre conduct in the summer of 2012 in which he used a baseball bat to beat his German shepherd, Captain, and left the dog for dead in a Kitsilano dumpster.
Whitlock, 26 years old at the time, received a 60-day jail sentence and a lifetime ban on owning animals after pleading guilty to animal cruelty.
Court heard that Whitlock used an axe to beat his mother over the head, fracturing her skull multiple times, and also inflicted “sharp force” injuries to her neck.
He dragged her down a set of stairs and left her body on the cement patio in the backyard. On the walls of the living room he wrote the words, “I killed Barbie” and later told police, ‘Yeah, I killed that witch.”
The judge is expected to impose sentence on Whitlock on Nov. 1.