WARNING: This story contains disturbing details and may not be suitable for all readers
A Nanaimo, B.C., woman who killed her boyfriend before dismembering him and dumping his body parts around Vancouver Island has been convicted of murder.
Paris Laroche was charged with first-degree murder, but convicted of the lesser charge of second-degree murder as well as interfering with a body on Friday.
The case involved the March 2020 death of Sidney Jospeh Mantee. He was reported missing in October of the same year.
Mantee’s mother broke into tears as B.C. Supreme Court Justice Robin Baird delivered the sentence.
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At trial, the court heard that Laroche bludgeoned Mantee with a hammer then slit his throat while he slept. She then gutted and drained his body as if it were a deer carcass.
Laroche told undercover officers she heard an owl hooting early that morning – essentially a sign – the time had come. Laroche, who was 24 at the time, had watched videos on how to gut animals, and stored Mantee’s dismembered body in her freezer.
She then stuffed his remains in a backpack and disposed of him around Vancouver Island over several months.
The court also heard from Laroche’s former employer and friend Terrylynn Boyle who testified about a phone call with the accused following her arrest in 2022.
“I came right out and asked her if she had done it, and she said ‘Yes,’” Boyle told the court.
Boyle further testified that Laroche had said Mantee had threatened to kill her family and friends and thrown her cat against a wall.
“She just wanted him to go to sleep,” Boyle told the court. “She got on top of him with a hammer and hit him over the head.”
The verdict in the judge-only trial hinged on whether the killing was in self-defence.
Justice Baird accepted that there was a history of abuse and that Laroche believed her boyfriend would follow through on his threats, but rejected the idea she was defending herself, as Mantee was asleep when he was killed.
“I find that this killing was an act of vengeance, probably fueled by a multitude of past transgressions but in particular because she thought Mr. Mantee had harmed her cat the night before,” Baird said.
“The violence of her attack was extreme and unmistakably punitive. I do not accept, that at the material time, it had anything to do with thoughts of self-preservation or the protection of others. It was a matter instead of revenge.”
Second-degree murder carries a mandatory life sentence with no chance of parole for a minimum of 10 years.
With files from Rumina Daya