Alberta woman who shot her husband, dumped body in slough sentenced to 18 years

An Alberta woman who admitted to shooting her husband and dumping his body in a slough has been sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Helen Naslund, who is 56, pleaded guilty in March to manslaughter in the September 2011 shooting of 49-year old Miles Naslund on a farm near Holden, Alta.

The couple’s 28-year old son, Neil Naslund, pleaded guilty to offering an indignity to human remains.

He was sentenced to three years in prison in Edmonton’s Court of Queen’s Bench.

The mother and son were both initially charged with first-degree murder and offering an indignity to human remains.

An agreed statement of facts says there was a domineering pattern of abuse in the marriage.

It says Helen Naslund shot her husband twice in the back of his head with a 22-calibre pistol when he was in bed.

The statement of facts says she and her son put the body in a metal truckbox and used a boat to dump it in a swampy area.

It says they threw the gun in another slough and buried the victim’s car in a farmer’s field.

His body was not found for six years.

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The Crown prosecutor on the case said, in his experience, it’s unusual for a woman, at this stage in life, to commit a crime like this.

“That just goes to show what domestic relationships can be like and the dynamic in these places,” Dallas Sopko said. “And when conflict happens, sometimes people who don’t otherwise commit criminal offences, do.”

He said he thinks it was a just outcome.

“Obviously taking someone’s life, from the Crown’s perspective, is very black and white, in that sense.

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But the background and the relationship between the parties clearly isn’t black and white; it’s grey. Uncovering what’s going on in someone’s house can be difficult. Because this is a domestic situation, there’s a lot we don’t know.”

Sopko said it’s been a complex case to prosecute.

“It can’t be lost on anyone that there’s these emotions and this great loss being felt by multiple people as a result of these crimes that were committed.”

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The concept of Battered Woman Syndrome factored into sentencing but it requires proof of self-defence and the Crown didn’t think it met that threshold.

RCMP had never been called to the house for domestic violence before.

Justice Sterling Sanderman called the whole situation tragic and added the offenders are not evil people.

“They’re two people who haven’t been able to deal with problems in their lives and they’ve committed serious crimes.”

— With files from Sarah Ryan, Global News