It wasn’t a traditional love story.
When Thomas Elton and Brenda Turcan married in 2005, both were convicted killers.
Then Elton strangled and stabbed his chronically ill wife in June 2009.
He was later convicted of second-degree murder, despite explaining that the couple had a suicide pact and that he only killed Turcan because he thought she had overdosed in an attempt to die that day.
In 2012, a trial judge accepted that Elton believed he was committing a mercy killing, but ruled he was still guilty of murder because the evidence showed his wife died by his hand and had not overdosed.
In 2014, Elton was sentenced to life in prison with no parole eligibility for 25 years.
He appealed the verdict, arguing that the trial judge erred by not fully considering whether “he aided the victim’s suicide or committed her murder.”
On Wednesday, the B.C. Court of Appeal dismissed Elton’s appeal and upheld his murder conviction.
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A July 1989 picture of convicted murderer Brenda Turcan, then Blondell, in Kingston Prison for Women.
Appeal Court Justice Gail Dickson said in her written reasons that the trial judge properly concluded “that even if Mr. Elton honestly believed Ms. Turcan was attempting suicide, by strangling and stabbing her he did not assist her suicide; he killed her by his own overt acts, intending to cause her death.”
“The judge concluded this amounts to murder. I see no error in his conclusion,” Dickson wrote.
Appeal Court Justices Peter Lowry and Elizabeth Bennett agreed.
Elton’s appeal was heard last March, four months after the two-time killer was found dead in his jail cell at Matsqui Institution in Abbotsford. The B.C. Coroners Service is still investigating his death, official Barb McLintock said Wednesday.
Dickson noted in her ruling that Elton and Turcan “were a loving and devoted couple” and that Turcan’s health had deteriorated “significantly” after a 2004 heart attack.
Elton testified at his trial that on the morning of June 22, 2009, Turcan had told him, “Well it’s time. It’s over. I’ve already gone. I’ve had enough.”
“He said these were code words that it was time for the agreed upon double-suicide,” Dickson said.
Elton took the dog for a walk and returned to find Turcan “sleeping or unconscious with a bottle of Valium in her hand.”
“In response to finding her in this state, he said, he fed the dog eight pills and took 23 pills himself, intending to fulfill the suicide pact. Wanting to ensure that Ms. Turcan’s wishes were carried out, he also strangled her and stabbed her with a bayonet,” the ruling said.
Elton called his dad to explain what he’d done and called a friend to pick up the dog. When paramedics arrived at the scene, Elton declined medical assistance.
A forensic pathologist testified that Turcan died from strangulation and had only taken “therapeutic levels of medication.”
“She had not taken a drug overdose,” Dickson wrote. “The judge found that Ms. Turcan was not attempting to commit suicide.”
The couple first met in 1995 when both were prison rights activists.
Elton was convicted in 1977 of second-degree murder after the fatal stabbing of a fellow inmate at Matsqui. He was granted full parole in 1986.
Turcan, then known by the surname Blondell, was convicted in 1987 of second-degree murder for strangling 21-year-old Mya Kulchyski in Coquitlam a year earlier.
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