Whidbey family remembers handyman Thomas Flood as murder sentence nears

Thomas Flood was the handyman many Whidbey Island neighbors knew, hired and trusted, and when the sentence came in his murder case, his family spoke about the man they lost more than the court outcome. Whatcom County Superior Court Judge Robert Olson sentenced Lynda Clare Mercy to 23.3 years in prison on April 7, five years after Flood was killed near the Coupeville ferry terminal.

Flood was 67 when he died in April 2021. His relatives described him as soft-spoken, kind, gentle and hard-working, a carpenter and mechanic who lived a simple life and often made his van his home. Flood grew up in Tacoma as the youngest of three children, and family members said the loss still sits with them in daily life. One niece said she still had a Christmas present for him from 2020 that she had planned to give him after his death.

At sentencing, six relatives gave victim impact statements, including his sister Kathleen May. His nephew, James May, said the family had spent five years watching “the justice system crawl.” Olson’s sentence matched the top of Mercy’s standard range for second-degree murder with the mandatory five-year firearm enhancement. Defense attorneys argued that Mercy’s trauma and mental illness should count in mitigation, but Olson said the decision was among the most difficult he had made on the bench.

Prosecutors said Mercy shot Flood twice in the torso near the Coupeville ferry terminal on the night of April 6, 2021, then drove him and his van to Blaine and dumped his body on Semiahmoo Spit, near Semiahmoo Park. Investigators said Flood likely would have survived if he had received medical treatment. They also found a partially crushed .40-caliber bullet casing near the ferry terminal that matched a gun registered to Mercy. Police arrested her on April 13, 2021, after surveillance video and public tips helped identify her.

The killing became part of the island’s memory not only because of Flood’s ties to South Whidbey, including times he lived at the Whidbey Island Fairgrounds camping area in Langley, but also because it was the first homicide discovery in Blaine in nearly four decades. For Flood’s family, the sentence closed one courtroom chapter but not the longer grief that followed him home to Whidbey.