Robber who beat Vancouver senior to death in her home gets 12 years

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An unemployed, homeless drug user who posed as a police officer to rob an elderly woman in her Mount Pleasant home was sentenced to 12 years in prison Wednesday after pleading guilty to manslaughter in B.C. Supreme Court.

Pascal Bouthillette, 44, appeared by video and couldn’t be seen by those in the public gallery after the judge pronounced sentence but could be heard to say “thank you” after Justice Kathleen Ker wished him well.

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Bouthillette had been charged with first-degree murder in the death of Usha Singh, 78, who lived alone in her Mount Pleasant home that she had fortified with a locked metal gate on the front door and security cameras in and outside, according to security footage shown in court.

Bouthillette and his co-accused, Sandy Parisian, who was earlier sentenced to seven years in prison for his manslaughter plea, were recorded on video on the porch wearing jackets with “police” on the back, telling Singh they were cops who were there to investigate an earlier robbery.

During the robbery, Singh was beaten and her hands tied with zip ties. She was left on the bathroom floor while the pair ransacked her house.

Police found her alive hours later after a concerned friend requested a wellness check. She died days later in hospital.

If convicted of first-degree murder, Bouthillette would have been sentenced to life without eligibility for parole for at least 25 years. But he pleaded guilty to manslaughter and the Crown and his lawyer in a joint submission sought a 12-year sentence. Ker agreed with the proposed sentence, taking into account whether it fit the crime and circumstances.

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Bouthillette has been in custody since his arrest in February 2021, days after Singh’s killing, and has about half the sentence left to serve because of two-for-one credit for time served.

Under Canadian law, most federal offenders are eligible to apply for full parole after serving one-third of the sentence, according to Public Safety Canada’s website. Being eligible for parole doesn’t mean it will be granted, it said.

Ker before sentencing said the way the pair posed as police to access Singh’s house “likely serves to sow doubt in the minds of many in the community” that those who come to their door identifying as cops aren’t actually officers and “the collective safety and psychological security of the community is thereby shaken and undermined.”

She also said Bouthillette invaded the sanctity of an elderly woman’s home and harmed her when she was unable to defend herself and left her “severely injured” on the bathroom floor, without calling for medical help as he could have, anonymously.

She said the “moral culpability” in the case was high.

Aggravating factors she considered in sentencing were the fact that the crime was planned, they posed as police officers, they brought along zip ties anticipating resistance, the motive was greed, Singh was beaten in vulnerable spots, including her head, face and neck, they removed property from her home and Bouthillette had an extensive criminal record and was on probation for other offences at the time of the killing.

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The mitigating factors were that Bouthillette pleaded guilty, which saves court resources, he’s shown genuine remorse and he has led a “tragic life,” she said. Court heard he was born to a drug-addicted mother and lived in foster care or institutions until he aged out.

“Life has not been easy by any stretch of the imagination,” Ker said, recounting how he was likely addicted to drugs at birth because of his mother’s drug use, didn’t live with his mother until he was six, was sent to a psychiatric institution at age eight, first given crack cocaine by his mother when he was nine, was a victim of physical violence, and, from ages five to 11, was sexually abused by his father and his mother’s drug dealer and when he told his mother, she called him a liar.

She said Bouthillette has a “lengthy” criminal record of 51 convictions, mostly for property offences but also for assault.

She also noted Bouthillette has been clean from drugs for a year and she said it appeared he was making “sincere efforts” to turn his life around, worked hard to be free from drugs, and will be “haunted” by the killing for the rest of his life.

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