UPDATE: Surrey RCMP report that Larson has been picked up for breaching her parole: “She is no longer wanted.”
SURREY — A Surrey woman convicted of manslaughter in connection with Whalley’s “House of Horrors” case is on Crime Stoppers’ “Most Wanted” list for breach of parole.
Joanna Lee Larson, 47, is subject to a Canada-wide arrest warrant effective July 10. She is five feet three inches tall and 160 pounds with brown hair, brown eyes and a rose tattoo on her left ring finger.
“She just didn’t show back up at whatever halfway house or wherever she’s supposed to be, but this is a fairly constant thing with her,” Steve Elson, operations manager of Vancouver Crime Stoppers, told the Now-Leader on Friday.
“She keeps on skipping out on her parole.”
Crime Stoppers is asking anyone with information as to Larson’s whereabouts to call its tip line, anonymously is okay, at 1-800-222-8477. Tipsters could be eligible for a $2,000 reward.
Notably, a routine SkyTrain fare check in February 2015 landed the convicted Surrey killer in more hot water with the law.
Transit Police spokeswoman Anne Drennan said at the time that police officers had been checking fares at Gateway SkyTrain Station in Whalley when they caught a woman with an expired fare.
“She refused to give a true name,” Drennan said. After some sleuthing, she said, the officers realized the woman was Larson, who had killed Surrey prostitute Annette Allan after torturing her at Whalley’s “House of Horrors” crack shack in 2001.
“We arrest a lot of people on warrants as a result of fare checks,” Drennan told the Now-Leader in 2015. “She failed to return to her day parole facility. She’s been at large since November.”
The Parole Board of Canada had revoked Larson’s parole in 2012 after it determined she’d threatened to beat another woman and had smuggled contraband into prison.
When she was 33, Larson and Francis Joseph Gauthier were arrested and charged with first-degree murder in Allan’s death. Both pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter and were sentenced to 18 years, which in Larson’s case worked out to 13 after credit for time served.
The Surrey Now interviewed Larson in 2011, in her home. “I’m not that person any more,” she said at the time. “I wish I could take it back, but I can’t. I want to change my life around,” she added. “I’ve got to heal.”
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