Image: Canadian Press

By Alyssa Conti

DEATH OF A MURDERER

Two-time murderer dies of natural causes in Abbotsford prison

Sep 23, 2025 | 11:46 AM

ABBOTSFORD — An inmate who had bludgeoned his roommate with a sledgehammer and fatally shot a bar patron has now died in an Abbotsford prison.

Correctional Service Canada (CSC) says the 74-year-old Thomas Anthony McDonald died at the Pacific Institution Friday, September 19.

The CSC does not divulge deceased inmates’ crimes, but court documents matching his name and age show McDonald had been convicted for a fatal 1981 shooting in Dawson Creek and a 2004 manslaughter charge when he: “seized a 14-pound sledgehammer and […] struck [his roommate] not just once but five or six times.”

The shooting followed a bar confrontation in which the victim, Earl Jones, slapped McDonald in front of other patrons “several times across the face” for asking to dance with his wife, which McDonald took offence to.

He later followed Jones’ car and fired a shot that went through the front bucket seats and hit Jones in the head.

INCLUSIVE WORK PROGRAM

New contract to help employ recycling depot workers facing job loss in Mission

10h ago

FATAL CRASH

1 dead after single-vehicle collision at Lougheed Highway Saturday

10h ago

Surrey Police Service say a nine-year-old has died after collision with large vehicle

12h ago

McDonald then fled to the U.S. that morning and did not return to Canada for years after his killing in the U.K. in 2007. He was finally convicted of Jones’ death in 2011, thanks to an undercover sting.

He died of natural causes while serving a life sentence that started in November 2015.

Next of kin have been notified. As with all cases involving an inmate’s death, Corrections Canada will review the circumstances and notify police and the coroner.