VIRGINIA (AP) – Repeat sex offender Donald Blom faces a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole for kidnapping and killing Katie Poirier, in a case that prompted the Legislature to tighten laws dealing with sex offenders.

Thursday, August 17, 2000

VIRGINIA (AP) – Repeat sex offender Donald Blom faces a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole for kidnapping and killing Katie Poirier, in a case that prompted the Legislature to tighten laws dealing with sex offenders.

After 25 days of testimony and about 10 hours of deliberations over two days, Blom was convicted Wednesday of first-degree murder during the commission of a kidnapping. Judge Gary Pagliaccetti scheduled a separate sentencing hearing for 9 a.m. Thursday in Carlton County.

Poirier’s relatives said they planned to exercise their right to tell the court – and Blom – how her murder had devastated their lives.

"We still lost," her mother, Pam Poirier, told reporters after the jury returned its verdict Wednesday. "We don’t get to bring her home."

Katie’s father, Steve Poirier, said he and his wife, their son, Patrick, and Katie’s grandfather, Lloyd Simich, would speak at the sentencing.

"The jury found Donald Blom guilty. Now the system cannot fail another family again," Pam Poirier said.

The case captured the state’s attention from the start, with a grainy black-and-white surveillance video that showed a man forcing the 19-year-old Poirier from a Moose Lake convenience store with his hands around her neck in May 1999.

Blom, 51, of Richfield, confessed last year to abducting Poirier, strangling her and burning her body in a fire pit on his vacation property nearby.