A Northern Manitoba man who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder last year for killing a cognitively challenged 14-year-old girl in 2011 when he was 16 years old has been sentenced to life in prison without a chance of parole for seven years.
The man, who can not be identified because he was under 18 years old at the time of the murder and is referred to only by his initials B.J.A., admitted that he killed the girl, identified only by her initials H.M., in the woods in Wabowden after having sex with her in June 2011. He became anxious afterwards that she might tell people about it, as she had on a previous occasion when they had had sex, though nobody believed her. He then picked up a rock and struck her in the head and smashed it into her head four more times after she fell to the ground before concealing her body in the bush, hiding the rock in a derelict car and returning home to dispose of some bloody clothes.
The man was interviewed by RCMP in the days after her body was discovered, maintaining his innocence and giving the police a DNA sample.
Three years later, when his DNA was linked to the murder scene, he was interviewed by police again and eventually confessed and also wrote a letter of apology to the victim’s family.
Because he was under 18 at the time of the crime, Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Chris Martin had the option of imposing a youth sentence, which is a maximum of seven years for second degree murder, or the adult sentence, which, for a second-degree murder committed while a person was 16 or 17 years old, is mandatory life in prison with no chance of parole for seven years. Though the judge said that a youth sentence would likely lead to rehabilitation and reintegration, he decided that a youth sentence would not be proportionate to the seriousness of the crime.
“Thus, that this murder was one of specific intent and was aimed at a vulnerable young person are important, as is the cruelty and hands-on nature of it and his senseless explanation of the crime,” Martin wrote in his Oct. 28 decision. “Especially critical though, is that B.J.A. by his own actions tried to, and almost did, get away with murder. Almost three years had passed. He had no intent to confess or accept responsibility. He did not do so until many hours into a gruelling interrogation, and then only when begged to confess by H.M.’s grandmother’s plea. His determination to get away with the murder highlights the need for a more meaningful consequence than any youth sentence can signify. Ultimately, weighing and balancing all of the factors that I must, I am not satisfied that a youth sentence will hold him accountable for this crime.”
