A teenage girl who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the death of a baby boy has been sentenced as adult.
A provincial court judge handed down his decision Tuesday afternoon in Saskatoon.
The judge said “it was a very unsophisticated but brutal murder” in sentencing the 18-year-old to life in prison with no chance of parole for seven years.
“The impulsiveness of this offence is not related to age.”
Nikosis Jace Cantre was six weeks old when he was injured at a home on Waterloo Crescent on July 3, 2016, and later died in a Saskatoon hospital.
The teen, who was 16 at the time, had escaped from Kilburn Hall Youth Centre the previous day where she had been serving a 120-day sentence for fleeing an open custody facility.
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Cantre’s family said they took in the teen after they found her wandering on the streets.
“Trying to wake up from this nightmare is never going to happen. It’s going to take me a while to heal, take my family awhile to heal,” Nikosis Cantre’s grandfather Jeffery Longman said.
The Crown had sought an adult sentence for the teen, while the teen’s lawyer had argued she has already been handed a life sentence at birth with no parental guidance growing up.
“It’s also the best outcome all around as far as I’m concerned in my opinion,” Crown prosecutor Jennifer Claxton-Viczko said.
“It’s not only in the best interest for the public in terms of protecting the public, but it’s the best outcome for the offender herself. Society now, through the parole board, will control her for life but it also gives her structure.”
Defence counsel said he’ll review the decision, but an appeal is unlikely.
“I wouldn’t say she’s surprised, I don’t even think I’d say she’s disappointed,” criminal defence lawyer Brian Pfefferle said.
“This is a really tough case with a lot of issues, the accused here, her mental capacity was so diminished that getting a reaction from a verdict like this is even difficult.”
Although she is being sentenced as an adult, her identity continues to be protected under a publication ban.
“Why do I think her name should be released? So everybody will know her name, so everybody will know who she is, that what she did was wrong and that this will never ever happen again,” Longman said.
It has been requested that she serve her sentence at the Regional Psychiatric Centre and if an appeal is not filed within the next 30 days, her name will be released to the public.
With files from Ryan Kessler
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