Man sentenced to life in prison for murdering teen in northern Alberta

WARNING: This article contains disturbing content.

Jason Alec Tallcree was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years in a Peace River, Alta., courtroom on Friday afternoon for the 2020 murder of Roderica Ribbonleg, a 15-year-old girl.

Tallcree was also sentenced to two years in prison for offering an indignity to a body and nine years for sexual interference. All the sentences will be served at the same time.

Ribbonleg went missing in July 2020 near John D’Or Prairie – a remote First Nations settlement located about 700 kilometres north of Edmonton. She was last seen alive July 5, sleeping in a rundown hut on the First Nation with no internet or phone service.

A week after she was last seen alive, an organized search party found her cellphone not too far from the hut. Ribbonleg’s body was found in a shallow grave in a beaver burrow.

An autopsy found she had been strangled to death — possibly with her own bra strap — and suffered blunt force trauma to her head.

Before Tallcree was sentenced, Ribbonleg’s family members gave their victim impact statements, which conveyed both anger and heartbreak over what happened to the girl.

Tallcree did not address the court during sentencing on Friday. The judge noted Tallcree did not display evidence suggesting he is remorseful for what he did, but did consider Gladue factors when delivering his sentence.

The judge acknowledged Tallcree was physically and sexually abused as a child and began abusing substances at the age of 11.

1:42 1st-degree murder verdict in death of northern Alberta teenager Roderica Ribbonleg

In 2014, Tallcree was charged with second-degree murder and interfering with a body in the death of his common-law wife, a mother of three named Malena Loonskin.

A year later those charges were stayed.

A spokesperson for Alberta Justice said at that time, the Alberta Crown Prosecution Service determined there was no longer a reasonable likelihood of conviction in the Loonskin case.

In April 2023, when Tallcree was found guilty of murdering Ribbonleg, the slain girl’s loved ones told Global News that they remembered her as being an outgoing and artistic person who had dreams of going to college or university.

–With files from Global News’ Sarah Komadina and Sarah Ryan