Cole Harbour homicide victim Hollie Boland let down by system, aunt says

Homicide victim Hollie Boland was a hard-working mom who was let down by the justice system, her family says.

Boland died in hospital after being struck that Monday afternoon by a car that police allege was driven by her ex-partner.

Aaron Daniel Crawley, 33, has been charged with first-degree murder in Boland’s death, and assault with a weapon for knocking a Good Samaritan to the ground while that person was trying to rescue Boland from the car.

Crawley was already facing criminal charges related to violence against Boland and was under court orders to stay away from her and their three children, but “he broke those every time and yet, the courts kept releasing him,” Boland’s aunt, Madeline Rhodenizer, said in a Facebook post.

Those charges included three from May 24 of this year of assaulting Boland with a car, uttering threats and dangerous driving. He was released that day on an undertaking.

Less than two weeks later, he was charged with assaulting and choking Boland and one of her friends, using a motor vehicle to assault another woman, dangerous driving and four counts of breaching his undertaking. He was also charged with setting fire to a home with people inside.

Rhodenizer told The Chronicle Herald in a follow-up message her niece wasn’t one of the people inside the home, and she believes they were relatives of Crawley. It was where they have previously lived, she said.

The Crown then applied to revoke Crawley’s release on the May charges and opposed his release on the new ones, but at a bail hearing June 14 Crawley was released on $6,200 bail.

Rhodenizer said Boland left the relationship in May after the first set of charges, taking the children with her and moving in with her mother.

“She got out safely, or so she thought,” she said in her post. “She was five feet tall and 100 lbs and he was six-foot-two and 220 lb. She didn’t stand a chance.”

Rhodenizer said her niece “was a beautiful, soft-hearted, funny, hard-working Mom, who went back to school to become a CCA and make a life for her and her kids.”

She said the fact that the three children have lost their mother “could have been prevented. Someone needs to be held accountable for this. So many mistakes made by the system that was supposed to protect her.”

She declined further comment on behalf of the family, saying that because Monday’s events will be part of the case, the family can’t speak any further.

Crawley appeared in Dartmouth provincial court Wednesday and is scheduled to return Nov. 29.