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A man who beat an 87-year-old Vancouver woman to death after breaking into her apartment while she was asleep has been sentenced to 18 years in jail.

In December, Nicholas Dwayne Wallace, 24, pleaded guilty to one count of manslaughter in connection with the November 2018 slaying of Elizabeth Mary Poulin. He’d initially been charged with second-degree murder.

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In imposing sentence of Wallace on Friday, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Douglas Thompson accepted a joint submission from Crown counsel Mark Myhre and defence lawyer John Turner calling for the lengthy jail term.

The judge noted that sentences for manslaughter result in a notoriously wide range of sentences because the underlying facts can range from near accident to near murder.

“This case is near murder,” said the judge.

Thompson added that notwithstanding the fact Wallace was a young man who had pleaded guilty and giving significant weight to the offender’s Aboriginal background, a sentence at the high end of the range was necessary to protect the public and adequately denounce the “brutal” killing of an elderly woman in her own apartment.