# Source note — Steven Laroche custody death and the Vicki Black case

Published/reviewed September 20, 2026. Original PBC document-based reporting; no interviews or outreach were conducted.

## Facebook lead and capture limits

Supplied: https://www.facebook.com/share/1Jm7MVhfL6/?mibextid=wwXIfr
Resolved photo: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=122150218593112632
Platform-visible account: Oh Canada Daily.

The share is a static photo/news card, not a captured video. The initial share fetch showed a Facebook/login shell. Alternate public photo endpoints exposed a meta-description identifying Steven Frank Laroche and the death; page extraction supplied the account, card wording and part of the caption. The full original photo was not recovered or republished. Facebook comments were not treated as evidence and are not in this public package. Raw Facebook HTML/metadata remain private. The current CTV article and official records independently identified the underlying story.

## Primary sources

1. Correctional Service Canada, September 16, 2026:
https://www.canada.ca/en/correctional-service/news/2026/09/death-of-an-inmate-from-mission-institution.html
Direct official HTML retrieved. Visible release body confirms September 11 death, age 58, Mission Institution, life sentence commenced December 19, 1997, and policy requiring coroner notification. It does not describe a cause, next-of-kin notification, a completed investigation or wrongdoing.

IMPORTANT CAUSE QUALIFICATION: the official page's JSON-LD description and a <p class="teaser hidden"> contain the wording “apparent natural causes.” The visible release body does not. The article makes that provenance distinction explicit instead of either ignoring the metadata or presenting it as a final coroner determination. No coroner finding was independently retrieved. CTV's statement that the release did not specify a cause is preserved as reporting about the release body, not treated as disproving its metadata.

2. R. v. Laroche, 2020 BCSC 1930, Vancouver docket 31109‑2, oral reasons November 17, 2020:
https://www.bccourts.ca/jdb-txt/sc/20/19/2020BCSC1930.htm
Full court-hosted HTML read; heading identifies Steven Frank Laroche and Associate Chief Justice H. Holmes. CanLII companion was blocked; that did not prevent primary verification from the court itself. The court's June 2018 appointment archive independently verifies the full name Heather J. Holmes: https://www.bccourts.ca/supreme_court/archived_announcements/2018/Apr_Jun_18.aspx . The title is described in the context of the 2020 sentencing, not a new 2026 appointment.

Paragraph anchors:
- 1, 27–32: guilty plea; joint Crown/defence proposal of 10 years; Anthony-Cook joint-submission standard; acceptance; sentence and credit.
- 3, 9–14: Vicki Black, age 23, killed March 4, 1993; profound effect on family and community. Graphic details and unnecessary living-family details are omitted from the article.
- 6–7: investigation reopened, DNA submitted in 2013, undercover operation began June 2019, admission during the operation.
- 19: separate 1996 Winnipeg killing and 1997 second-degree murder conviction; first-offender treatment for sentencing the earlier crime. The article does not suggest the Manitoba conviction disappeared or was overlooked.
- 20–21: day parole December 2005, full parole January 2008, later suspension and full parole again January 2014. Therefore a life sentence from 1997 is not evidence of continuous custody from that date.
- 25–26: aggravating and mitigating circumstances. No suggestion of judicial misconduct or causal connection to the later death.
- 31–32: 126 days credited at 1.5 = 189; 236 days at 1 = 236; total credit 425 days, described by the judge as 14 months, leaving eight years and 10 months. The primary court's credit is not relabelled as actual time served or used to invent a projected release date, particularly given the separate life sentence.

No publication-ban notice, 486.4/517/539 reference or sealing restriction appeared in the retrieved reasons. This is not an exhaustive registry or publication-ban audit. The victim is named in the published judgment and public police/media reporting. No living relative is identified beyond general relationships necessary to describe the loss.

## Original reporting and identification bridge

CTV, Ian Holliday, September 18, 2026:
https://www.ctvnews.ca/vancouver/article/man-who-was-arrested-26-years-after-killing-vancouver-sex-worker-dies-in-prison/
The first generic extraction omitted the article body. The publisher's embedded ReportageNewsArticle JSON-LD supplied the complete articleBody and an embedded link to 2020 BCSC 1930. CTV reports CSC confirmed by email that the deceased inmate was the same man given an additional eight years and 10 months for manslaughter on November 17, 2020. PBC did not independently receive that email and attributes the identity confirmation to CTV.

Global News, Simon Little, November 29, 2019:
https://globalnews.ca/news/6236438/dtes-cold-case-murder-charge/
Arrest/charge reporting attributed to RCMP, including the family's short public statement. This is reporting of an initial second-degree murder charge, not the eventual conviction. Some older coverage uses “Stephen”; the official reasons use “Steven Frank Laroche” and CSC uses “Steven Laroche.” The article follows those primary identifiers rather than silently assuming all name variants are separate people.

The CBC 2020 report corroborates the manslaughter plea and sentence but gives a different first-full-parole year. The article relies on the court's January 2008 date. The current Fraser Valley Today headline about being behind bars for over 28 years was not adopted because the primary reasons record parole periods. Raw publisher pages and unrelated recommendations/comments remain local-only.

## Public package and safety

Public files contain original source notes, claim labels, curated case metadata, a source-lead record and a draft social caption. The original PBC graphic contains no victim, accused or family photographs. Full copyrighted news text, graphic court excerpts, contact details, private Facebook data and raw research dumps are not uploaded. Court and media links allow readers to check provenance; the article warns that the court reasons themselves contain graphic material.

The death is not presented as proof of prison wrongdoing, a medical diagnosis or responsibility for other unsolved cases. No photos or identities are inferred from commenter speculation. The historical sentencing judge is routed to the CanadianJudges/JudgeWatch source-trail workflow based on the verified judgment; no new judicial decision is attributed to the custody death.

Verified judicial companion: https://canadianjudges.ca/blog/laroche-vicki-black-holmes-sentencing-source-trail-2026-09-20/
Judge profile: https://canadianjudges.ca/judges/bc-sc-heather-j-holmes/