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An Edmonton-area plumber has been found guilty of second-degree murder in the 2019 beating death of a woman at a roadside turnoff near Spruce Grove.
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Blake Jolicoeur had tried to plead guilty to the lesser charge of a manslaughter in the death of 36-year-old Saladina Vivancos, arguing he killed her unintentionally, and in self-defence.
In delivering his ruling, Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Douglas Mah rejected that argument, noting the attack left Vivancos with dozens of cuts and fractures to her head.
“I can conclude from a human skull that has been pummeled and cracked open, that the person who did the pummeling appreciated that death was a likely result of the blows,” he said in finding Jolicoeur’s actions had shown the attempt to kill required for a murder conviction.
“Looking at the outcome of the attack, I am compelled to say Mr. Jolicoeur must have known that death was likely.”
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‘BLOOD ON THE GROUND, BLOOD ON THE BUMPER’
According to an agreed statement of facts, Vivancos worked as a driver for a cocaine sales operation covering the Spruce Grove/Stony Plain region.
On Nov. 16, 2019, she stopped responding to messages, prompting a search by her friend and her employer, who used GPS to track the Volkswagen Jetta she was driving to a rural area outside Spruce Grove.
The two men arrived after dark and realized something was wrong when they spotted the Jetta on a frozen pond. Daniel Ibanescu, Vivancos’s longtime friend, described turning on his cell phone flashlight and walking out onto the ice.
“As I was approaching the vehicle I started seeing blood,” he said. “Blood on the ground, blood on the bumper. It was pretty much everywhere.”
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The driver’s side window was either rolled down or smashed out. A small fire had been lit inside. It took Ibanescu a few moments to notice his friend’s bloodied body on the back seat.
Paramedics and police eventually arrived and pronounced Vivancos dead. An autopsy determined she died of blunt-force trauma to the head. A bloody tire iron was discovered in Ella’s Jetta’s trunk.
‘I LOST CONTROL’
At trial, Jolicoeur admitted he caused Vivancos’s death, but denied he had the necessary attempt for murder.
At the time, the then-36-year-old was living with a woman and her children in Spruce Grove and working for a plumbing and heating company. He told police he had recently stopped using drugs and that his life was finally “coming together.”
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Jolicoeur told police he got the number used to call Vivancos’s employer after being laid off earlier that year. He was trying to “hustle to make ends meet,” selling small amounts of drugs.
He claimed Vivancos started to hit him with a metal object after he climbed into her car at Township Road 532A and Range Road 274. Jolicoeur — who told police he weighs over 200 pounds — claimed he disarmed Vivancos, who estimated he stood no taller than five -foot-eight.
“I lost control ’cause I was scared,” he said. “I was doing it in self defence.”
But Mah took issue with some of Jolicoeur’s story, noting he had given police three different versions of what happened over the course of the investigation.
“There are some critical junctures in his narrative where he has been untruthful,” he said.
“I don’t particularly believe that Ms. Vivancos pulled out a weapon and attacked Mr. Jolicoeur in an unprovoked manner while she was driving the Volkswagen Jetta down the service road.”
Jolicoeur was taken into custody after the ruling Tuesday.
Lawyers will meet this week to set a date for a sentencing hearing that is expected to last a full day.
– With files from Jonny Wakefield
