| Harvey Specter | 06-23-2009 07:30 PM |
Surrey murder suspect and victim both convicted killers, activists
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METRO VANCOUVER — They were prisoner-rights activists, artists, convicted killers and husband and wife.
Now Tom Elton is back behind bars, charged in the bloody murder Monday of his wife Brenda Blondell.
Elton, 54, was arrested after Blondell’s body was found by police about noon Monday in the apartment they shared in the 14800 block of 104th Avenue in Surrey.
Blondell, 59, was stabbed to death.
Elton’s history with police dates back to his teenage years when he began using heroin, according to parole documents obtained by The Vancouver Sun.
He was in Matsqui prison for break and enter when he and others stabbed to death Arthur Gerald Wadlow, 26, a fellow prisoner, in 1975. He was convicted of second-degree murder.
After getting parole in 1988, he was convicted of impaired driving and “and you assaulted a police officer,” the documents state.
He got day parole again in 1994 after getting treatment for anti-social behaviour.
But in November 1998, he was arrested again, “found by police in a house grappling with a man with a cut throat who accused you of slashing him.”
Elton was acquitted in that case because others in the house “were uncooperative.”
He got full parole again in 2000. “You have demonstrated a high degree of self-knowledge and insight and appear to be dealing with stressors appropriately,” the board said then.
Blondell was also a lifer, having been convicted of the gruesome 1987 murder in Vancouver of Mya Kulchyski, a 21-year-old struggling with drug addiction. Blondell and another accused, Andrea James, beat and strangled Kulchyski with a dog leash, then sexually abused her to make it look like she was attacked by a man, B.C. Supreme Court was told.
Blondell and James drove Kulchyski to a parking lot near Burnaby Lake and threw her in a creek, where she drowned. Their car got stuck in a nearby ditch as they fled and good Samaritans could not pull it out. The car was key evidence at trial.
Justice George Murray said Blondell showed no remorse for the killing and was “beyond rehabilitation,” sentencing her to life with no chance of parole until the year 2001.
She went on to become an activist in Kingston penitentiary for women, just as Elton had become an activist inside jail.
In recent years, the couple had regularly spoken at prisoners’ rights event such as the annual Prisoners’ Justice Day in August.
Blondell travelled a similar path as Elton. She was already a hardened criminal and heroin user when she was convicted of murder. She described herself as a “street person,” called her car a “travelling drug store” and regularly sold narcotics out of her Coquitlam home.
Kulchyski was killed after she arrived at Blondell’s home looking for a loan to buy drugs. Blondell, James and Kulchyski were involved in a lesbian love triangle that caused jealousy. The trio quarrelled bitterly the night of the killing.
Once in Kingston prison for murder, Blondell began to change, the parole board said in a 2005 decision.
“For the first few years of your current sentence you were uncooperative, belligerent and continued to use drugs. You made very little progress in reducing your risk. ... You were involved in fights with other inmates, you attempted suicide on several occasions and you were self-abusive,” the board wrote.
But then Blondell got counselling, therapy and got off drugs.
A November 2002 psychological assessment “rated your risk for further violence over the long term as high,” the board noted. But a year later her assessment showed a much lower risk and said Blondell was “manageable in the community.”
She got day parole in October of 2003, but was caught shop-lifting a few months later. She was released again once she entered a methadone program.
“What is most noteworthy is that you and your husband now speak at local educational facilities about substance abuse, incarceration and parole,” the board said in granting her full parole.
“You plan to reside with your husband who is considered a positive support person.”
The decision noted that Blondell had three heart attacks from 2003 to 2005 and had a very stressful life.
“You readily acknowledged that you have some concern about the future, but you’ve found an anchor of support in your husband, your work and your associates,” the documents said. “You are now more resigned to living pro-socially with your husband with whom you share not only a home, but a passion for helping others avoid your mistakes.”
kbolan@vancouversun.com
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