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SILENT TRIBUTE: Family and friends of Olivia Malcom pay tribute outside Surrey provincial court Monday. Up front are dad Tony (left), mom Bridget (centre) and sister Erica .
PHOTO CORNELIA NAYLOR
Driver pleads guilty in death of Olivia Malcom Cornelia Naylor
cnaylor@newwestrecord.ca
Bridget Malcom’s life “collapsed” on the night of June 2, 2018 – the moment she learned over the phone that first responders had stopped doing CPR on her 19-year-old daughter Olivia on a dark Delta highway.
Olivia, who was born and raised in NewWestminster, had been crushed between the family’s Honda Civic and a Jeep Wrangler beside Highway 17A near LadnerTrunk Road at about 10:15 p.m. that night. She was declared dead at the scene. “This moment has for-
ever broken me in two,” said her mother in a victim impact statement she read out in Surrey provincial court. The Burnaby driver responsible for Olivia’s death, 45-year-old Chao Chen, who now lives in Richmond, was in court on Monday to plead guilty to dangerous driving causing
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death. Victim impact statements made by Olivia’s parents and younger sister painted a picture of a devastated family. “I’m just trying to survive one day at a time,” said dadTony Malcom, a longtime NewWestminster firefighter, who is off on his second long-term
leave trying to cope with the loss of a daughter who had called him her “best friend” and made sure their mats at OxygenYoga & Fitness – where she was a manager – were always near each other so they could work out together. “My role of a mother of two has been forever redefined,” said mom Bridget
of the gaping hole left by the death of her firstborn daughter – born on June 10, 1998, after a five-year infertility battle. “I brought my precious baby girl into this world, and it was my responsibility to be with Olivia when I closed her casket for the final time,” Bridget said. Continued on page 3
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