The 25-year-old man who murdered Prince George mother Isabelle Thomas in her Alpine Village townhouse in 2023 was convicted of first-degree murder on Monday, Nov. 10.
BC Supreme Court Justice Michael Tammen, who heard the trial in September and October, decided that Zain Xavier Wood’s July 17, 2023 killing of his 22-year-old former girlfriend was planned and deliberate.
Tammen said he did not believe Wood’s claim that he simply wanted to steal Thomas’s PlayStation video game system in order to pay a legal bill. He went so far as to call Wood’s testimony a “web of lies” designed to avoid criminal culpability.
The conviction carries a sentence of life in prison with no parole for 25 years.
The case was adjourned to Nov. 27 to schedule an expected two-day sentencing hearing.
At the end of the trial, Crown prosecutor Tyler Bauman called the PlayStation story “not worthy of belief” and emphasized how Wood admitted under cross-examination that his presence at Thomas’s home was planned and deliberate.
Wood made two prior trips to Thomas’s home, including July 13, 2023 when he ripped off Thomas’s motion-activated doorbell camera.
Defence lawyer Tony Lagemaat conceded that his client should be convicted of manslaughter for causing Thomas’s death. He told Tammen at the time, whether he is guilty of more than manslaughter, depends on what was going on in Wood’s head.
“So much of the evidence we heard is circumstantial,” Lagemaat said.
Wood had a history of mental illness and drug abuse. He was committed under the Mental Heath Act in late 2019 and he testified that he heard threatening and belittling voices in his head when he was 16-years-old.
Wood testified that, the week before he fatally stabbed Thomas, he was using “between a couple points to a gram” of methamphetamine per day and consuming a jar of moonshine daily.
Wood also claimed that he heard voices on July 17, 2023 that threatened him and his family. He claimed one of the voices was Thomas. He thought he could get $400 or more by stealing and pawning Thomas’s PlayStation, so he entered Thomas’s unlocked front door, went upstairs and, he claimed, encountered her by surprise.
The Crown case said Wood stabbed Thomas 16 times in just 35 seconds, fled and discarded the murder weapon.
Wood denied he was planning to cause Thomas’s death and denied fantasizing about killing the mother of two children.
But, Bauman argued in front of Tammen, so much of Wood’s behaviour after he fled the scene did not match the profile of someone who claimed to be intoxicated.
Wood hailed a cab and ensured the driver did not see blood by taking off his glove; instead of a card, he chose to pay with a bill that did not have any blood on it; he discarded the knife; and, after arriving at home, he got rid of bloodied clothes and cleaned both himself and his remaining clothes.
Expert witness Dr. Tyler Oswald testified that “all those decisions are very organized and suggest he was not wildly impaired.”
