A B.C. woman who was convicted of a fatal hit-and-run despite her "elaborately concocted alibi" which included forged letters and lying about her truck being stolen by a panhandler, has lost her bid to have her sentence reduced.
In a decision posted Wednesday, the B.C. Court of Appeal rejected Linnea Louise Labbee's claim that the sentence to two years less a day in a provincial jail and two years of probation was unfit.
In 2016, the court heard, Labbee was driving in Chilliwack when she struck a 73-year-old woman at a crosswalk. Labbee and her vehicle were identified by a number of witnesses.
"After striking and driving over top of the victim, Ms. Labbee pulled her truck over and stopped. She looked back at (the victim) lying motionless on the ground, but after a moment sped away and drove straight to a nearby mall," the court said.
After Labbee's arrest, she "told an elaborate story" to police and "maintained her false alibi" up to and during her trial in 2021.
In finding Labbee guilty, the trial judge detailed the "smokescreen" created in "an effort to avoid responsibility."
First, Labbee left the scene and went to a nearby mall where she had lunch, visited several stores, and chatted to employees. Her visit to the mall was captured on surveillance. The judge found Labbee did this "so that she could tell police, as she did, that she had been elsewhere throughout the period of time surrounding the accident."
Next, after her arrest, the court heard that...
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