Warning: This story contains graphic details A man who killed two women in the 1990s has died in custody in a federal prison in B.C.’s Fraser Valley. Steven Frank Laroche was an inmate at Mission Institution, a facility with both medium- and minimum-security units in Mission, B.C. At the time of his death on Sept. 11, the 58-year-old was serving a life sentence that began on Dec. 19, 1997, according to a statement issued Wednesday by the Correctional Service of Canada. The CSC did not specify Laroche’s cause of death, nor did it share any details about the offence that led to his sentence. However, a B.C. Supreme Court sentencing decision from November 2020 sheds additional light on Laroche’s life and crimes. According to the document, Laroche pleaded guilty to manslaughter in connection to the cold case death of Vicki Black. Black, a 23-year-old mother who was working in the sex trade in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, was killed on March 4, 1993. “Her body was found in a dumpster behind a restaurant on Hastings Street,” the decision reads. “She was almost entirely naked, but was wrapped in a bedsheet, bound by electrical cord. The cause of her death was strangulation.” According to the decision, the case went unsolved during the initial investigation, which concluded without a suspect after two years. Laroche, who was 24 at the time of the crime, lived two blocks away from the location where Black was last seen. In 2013, DNA evidence linked him to the killing. In the meantime, according to the decision, Laroche moved to Winnipeg for work in 1994. There, he killed another woman and was sentenced to life in prison for second-degree murder—the life sentence that began in December 1997 referenced in the CSC statement.. The B.C. sentencing decision does not include further details about the Manitoba murder, saying only that Laroche was granted day parole in 2005 and full parole in 2008. “Parole was suspended in September 2009 because of another decline in Mr. Laroche’s mental health and serious concerns about suicide,” the decision reads. “After the suspension of his parole, Mr. Laroche was then able to re‑establish stable mental health by appropriately taking advantage of various forms of therapy and assistance in the custodial setting. He was granted full parole once again in early January 2014.” In 2019, police began an undercover operation in an effort to gather further evidence connecting Laroche to the killing of Black. By that time, Laroche was living in Hamilton, Ont. The decision indicates that police ran “almost 90” undercover scenarios, eventually eliciting a confession. “Mr. Laroche admitted that he killed Ms. Black after a dispute over payment for sex in his apartment,” the decision reads. “He told the undercover officers that when Ms. Black attempted to sell his VCR for payment, and also threatened to get her friends to assault him and damage his car, he became angry and he throttled and choked her.” Laroche was arrested and charged with second-degree murder. He later pleaded guilty to the lesser offence of manslaughter. His parole for the Manitoba murder conviction was revoked after his arrest, according to the sentencing decision. In an email to CTV News, the CSC confirmed that the same Steven Laroche who died last week was also sentenced to an additional eight years and 10 months for manslaughter on Nov. 17, 2020. That’s the duration and date of the B.C. Supreme Court sentencing in connection to Black’s death. “As in all cases involving the death of an inmate, Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) policy requires that the coroner be notified,” the CSC said in its statement.
