Woman gets 23 years for killing Langley man in 2021

Thomas (Tom) Flood, 67, a Langley handyman and carpenter known for helping others through Alcoholics Anonymous, had his body found on Semiahmoo Spit in Blaine on April 7, 2021 after two teenage boys discovered him under blankets, setting off five years of investigation and grief for family and neighbors. On April 7, 2026 Whatcom County Superior Court Judge Robert E. Olson sentenced 67-year-old Lynda Clare Mercy of Fairhaven, Bellingham to 280 months in prison, or 23 years and 4 months, followed by three years of community custody, closing a case that has weighed on South Whidbey families since the body was identified on April 13, 2021.

Mercy was convicted by a jury on February 23, 2026 of second-degree murder with a firearms enhancement; the statutory firearms enhancement added a mandatory five years beyond the standard sentencing range. Prosecutors had sought the high end of the standard range, calculated at 123 to 220 months for Mercy’s record, and Erik Sigmar, Whatcom County Chief Deputy Prosecutor, called the sentence a "just punishment." Judge Olson said he was "moved deeply" by victim impact statements and called sentencing "one of the most difficult decisions" of his career, while granting Mercy roughly five years’ credit for time already served since her April 13, 2021 arrest.

Whatcom investigators and prosecutors built a circumstantial case that tied actions on Whidbey Island to the Blaine discovery and to Bellingham. Detectives tracked Flood’s phone to a Ford Econoline van with pooled blood, recovered a partially crushed .40-caliber shell casing near the Coupeville ferry terminal that matched a firearm registered to Mercy, and found Mercy’s DNA on a white cloth mask discovered by Flood’s body. Surveillance video placed Mercy parking and abandoning the van at Hillcrest Chapel in Fairhaven and at a Bellingham gas station along the route to Blaine, and a friend’s tip that Mercy had given them a box containing a gun helped corroborate ownership.

Family members filled the courtroom and six relatives, including Flood’s sister Kathleen May and niece Jane May, gave victim impact statements describing Flood as quiet, dependable and a longtime supporter in recovery; relatives described the multi-year legal process as "hell on Earth" and said the sentence brought relief after years of uncertainty. Defense lawyers, including public defender Timothy Arnold and Senior Deputy Public Defender Shoshana Paige, had urged leniency and presented mitigation materials showing abuse, poverty, trauma and mental‑health struggles; the judge acknowledged Mercy’s history but declined to treat it as mitigating at sentencing.

For Island County, the case mattered beyond courtroom counts because Flood lived and worked on Whidbey and because investigators coordinated across jurisdictions from Coupeville ferry terminal to Semiahmoo Spit and Fairhaven to assemble phone pings, surveillance and forensic matches. The 2021 Semiahmoo discovery was notable in Blaine as the city’s first homicide found in nearly four decades, and the sentence now closes a high-profile chapter while underscoring questions about cross-county investigations and how courts balance long-term trauma and mental-health histories at sentencing.