WARNING: Details in this story are disturbing. Discretion is advised.
A B.C. man who killed his wife and dismembered her body has been sentenced to 16 years in prison.
With credit for time served, Obnes Regis will serve an additional 12 years behind bars.
Regis, 52, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and interfering with human remains several days into his trial in the death of his wife, Surrey teacher-librarian Naomi Onotera.
In handing down the sentence, a B.C. Supreme Court justice added that his immigration status in Canada was in jeopardy. The court has previously heard that he had been ordered deported to Haiti multiple times since 2011.
Onotera’s sister Kristen Kerr told Global News she was not satisfied with the sentence.
“It would never have been enough, nothing would ever have been enough for what he did,” she said.
“He is a monster, it’s horrific. And we just, we wanted more. I don’t feel that justice was served for her.”
Her brother-in-law Nick Kerr added that Regis’ actions were “near murder.”
“It should have been at the higher end of the spectrum, and we don’t feel like that was truly at the high end,” he said.
The court had previously heard the gruesome details of Onotera’s death.
Her official cause of death remains unknown, as Regis cut her body into pieces and took transit with their young daughter to dispose of it in various Metro Vancouver locations, according to an admission of undisputed facts entered at trial.
Pre-trial video evidence obtained by Global News showed Regis telling Langley RCMP that he struck Onotera during an argument about putting the two-year-old girl to bed in August 2021.
“When I hit her, she fell down,” he told police in a videotaped interview. “A big loss, big loss, it’s hard. A big loss.”
In the initial days of his trial, before Regis changed his plea to guilty, a DNA expert testified that Onotera’s DNA was found on a mitre saw seized from the family’s front lawn.
Regis apologized to Onotera’s family in a written statement read by his lawyer during his sentencing hearing, prompting the victim’s sister to storm out of the courtroom.