A former Riverdale actor who admitted to murdering his mother to prevent her from learning about his assassination plan for Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada, has been given a life sentence.
After pleading guilty to a charge of second-degree murder for shooting his 64-year-old mother, Barbara Waite, while she played the piano back in March 2020, Ryan Grantham, 24, will not be eligible for parole for 14 years.
He then decided to turn himself in to authorities after driving to Trudeau’s house with three firearms, ammo, and 12 Molotov cocktails in his car.
The only point on which his attorneys may disagree was the length of time he would have to serve before becoming eligible for parole under Canadian law, which automatically imposes a life sentence for a conviction of second-degree murder.
In June, they claimed that Grantham should be eligible for parole after serving 12 years because he had acknowledged his guilt and exhibited remorse. The federal government countered that he should spend 17 to 18 years.
However, according to CBC, British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Kathleen Ker decided on Wednesday that the actor should only spend 14 years because of his downward spiral in the months before the murder.
She saw that Grantham was sincere in his apologies and was pursuing mental health treatment in jail, where staff members were complimentary of his demeanor and development.
The fact that Grantham had a strong enough connection to reality and cognitive awareness to decide to carry out a mass murder or assassinate the prime minister was also hailed by Ker as a “saving grace.”
As Waite played the piano on March 31, 2020, Grantham shot her in the back of the head. He then confessed to the murder and displayed his mother’s dead body in a video presented by the prosecution in June.
‘I shot her in the back of the head,’ he reportedly said on the tape. ‘In the moments after, she would have known it was me.’
The actor then experimented with constructing Molotov bombs, bought alcohol and marijuana, watched Netflix, and then covered his mother’s corpse with a sheet before bed.
The following morning, according to Grantham, he loaded his car with three weapons, ammo, a dozen Molotov cocktails, camping equipment, and instructions to Trudeau’s Rideau Cottage in Ottawa before hanging a rosary on Waite’s piano and placing lighted candles around her body.
Before changing his mind and considering conducting “an act of mass murder” at Simon Fraser University, where he had dropped out, he had intended to travel more than 50 hours to assassinate Trudeau.
Before hurting anybody else, he reported himself to the Vancouver police, and in March, he admitted to second-degree murder.
Grantham murdered his mother, according to the prosecution, in order to’save her’ from seeing the unfolding of his assassination plot against the prime minister of Canada.
Grantham committed the murder, according to their two psychological assessments, to prevent her mother from seeing further violent actions he had intended to perform.
According to the assessments, Grantham had despair, self-hatred, a cannabis use disorder, and homicidal and suicidal thoughts months before the murder.
Grantham wrote in his diary in March, “I’m so sorry mom, I’m so sorry Lisa,” according to the prosecution. I despise myself.
There are several media depictions of me online. movies and TV… I have hundreds of hours of video available for analysis. Nobody will comprehend.
At the June sentence hearing, prosecutor Michaela Donnelly stated that Mr. Grantham was trying to prevent him from harming his mother.
The murder, according to her, was a “heartbreaking breach of trust.”
‘Barbara Waite loved her son very much, was an excellent parent and in her mind had no reason to fear him,’ she said.
Grantham had many opportunities to reconsider his decision, according to Donnelly.
On the day of the murder, he supposedly loaded and unloaded his revolver many times and contemplated his options while sitting on the steps of his home for close to 15 minutes before turning around and murdering his mother.
Grantham was allegedly terrified Waite would learn he was consuming marijuana and had ceased taking school at Simon Fraser University.