Woman sentenced to six years after killing ex at birthday party

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This article was published 06/06/2024 (848 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A low-functioning woman with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder who stabbed her ex-boyfriend to death in the hallway of her apartment after he assaulted her and others during a birthday gathering has been sentenced to six years in prison.

Eliah Olson, 21, who previously pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the 2022 stabbing death of Logan Clarke, 18, was handed the prison stint by Court of King’s Bench Justice Brian Bowman this week.

“Clarke was in the throes of violently assaulting her and others moments before his death. The accused’s reaction to Clarke’s assault, however, was to leave the hallway and return to her apartment to obtain the knife that she then used to stab him numerous times,” Bowman said Tuesday.

“The accused’s background and personal circumstances, combined with the circumstances of the offence, do temper her moral culpability, but it nonetheless remains at a level that a significant and meaningful sentence is required.”

Bowman split the difference between the request of Crown prosecutor Boyd McGill, who asked for an eight-year federal prison sentence, and defence lawyer Tara Walker, who sought four years served in provincial jail.

With time served, Olson is set to serve three-years-and-two-months behind bars.

Court heard Olson, Clarke and three friends had gathered at Olson’s Burnell Street basement apartment to celebrate a birthday in the afternoon of July 15, 2022. The group smoked cannabis and drank together, before Clarke started an argument with Olson and became aggressive.

The pair had been in a relationship for about six months, but broke up a few weeks before Clarke’s death, Bowman noted.

Clarke punched a wall with a knife and broke the frame of his welding diploma, before grabbing Olson by her hair and dragging her to the apartment’s hall.

Two of her friends tried to de-escalate, but Clarke kicked one before a male friend grappled with Clarke against the hallway’s wall, sliding to the floor.

Olson went back to her apartment to retrieve the knife, told her friend to move and stabbed Clarke four times, with one wound to his heart.

She changed her clothes, pulled the fire alarm, and left with her friends to board a city bus, where security video caught the group distraught as Olson said: “Don’t saying nothing.”

She had originally been charged with second-degree murder, but the Crown accepted the fact there was an element of provocation to the slaying.

Defence lawyer Walker previously told court that Olson, who was diagnosed with FASD at age seven, never got the resources needed to steer her away from the justice system.

Olson was examined as a child by a doctor who concluded it was unlikely she would ever be able to live on her own without supports, Walker said earlier this year.

Olson grew up in Long Plain First Nation and was not raised by her parents, court heard. She has two children with another man, who was abusive toward her, which Walker said influenced her actions on the day of the stabbing.

Walker said there was a strong case for self defence or defence of a third-party, if the charge had gone to trial.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca