After flip-flopping on a plea deal last year and requesting his case go to trial, Jonathan Edward Martin pleaded guilty on Monday to second-degree murder in the death of Chelsea Serpentini-Harty.
Serpentini-Harty was found dead in her northeast Calgary basement apartment in 2015. Martin, who was her boyfriend at the time, was charged with first-degree murder two days later.
In 2017, Martin decided he wanted to go to trial, which came as a shock to Serpentini-Harty’s family, as Martin had previously said he wanted the case to go straight to sentencing.
Martin’s trial was supposed to get underway on Monday, but instead he pleaded guilty to a lesser charge.
According to an agreed statement of facts, the two had been dating for about eight months. They were living together in an apartment in a townhouse on Pinehill Road N.E. for about two months.
Watch from 2017: The family of Chelsea Serpentini-Harty says they are heartbroken after a plea deal in their daughter’s case fell through on Tuesday. Kris Laudien reports.
On the night he killed his girlfriend, Martin had been drinking. According to the agreed statement of facts, when Serpentini-Harty returned home from her shift at Tim Hortons, the two had a domestic argument and Serpentini-Harty was assaulted. Evidence of the physical struggle could be seen in the bedroom and living room of the apartment.
A doctor testified Serpentini-Harty sustained at least 27 injuries in the physical struggle, including blunt impacts all over her body and bruising that indicated she was grabbed and dominated. Martin was uninjured.
As the 24-year-old woman tried to defend herself, Martin put her in an arm-bar choke hold around her neck and held her that way until she died, according to the agreed statement of facts.
Martin has admitted to having partially dismembering Serpentini-Harty’s body on the morning after, in an attempt to dispose of her body. According to the agreed statement of facts, he wore a ski jacket while doing so and tried to avoid tracking blood on the stair outside the apartment.
After trying to dismember Serpentini-Harty’s body, the agreed statement of facts states Martin called his grandmother and admitted to having “strangled someone because she knew too much,” according to the agreed statement of facts. His grandmother then called the police.
Martin was arrested while leaving the townhouse through the back door.
On Monday, he was sentenced to life in prison with no chance for parole for at least 13 years.