Two teen girls who pleaded and were found guilty of the manslaughter of another teen girl in 2010 have each been sentenced to three years of custody.
A 14-year-old and a 15-year-old girl were each charged with second-degree murder in connection with the death of a 16-year-old girl, whose body was found in a wooded area behind the Landmark Inn, in September 2010. The charges were later downgraded to manslaughter.
Both of the accused pleaded guilty to the lesser charge on May 22, 2012.
The victim suffered from massive blunt force trauma to the head, face and neck.
The maximum sentence for manslaughter under the Youth Criminal Justice Act is three years. Both girls, now 16 and 17, were sentenced Tuesday to two years in custody – one in secure custody and one in open custody – and a third year to be spent in the community under supervision.
Both girls have spent 22 months in pre-sentence custody.
At the end of their second year in custody, both teens will appear before the court where the conditions of their community supervision will be decided.
According to the agreed statement of facts, the two accused met with the victim and her male cousin at the LCBO on Sept. 20, 2010. They pooled their money and got someone to buy them alcohol. They went into the wooded area behind the Landmark Inn and drank the alcohol.
At some point the cousin had to leave suddenly. Something had happened between the male cousin and one of the accused that upset both of the accused. They then became upset with the victim.
An altercation then occured. The victim's body was found by a passerby hours later.
Both the mother and father of the victim read victim impact statements at the sentencing hearing and Justice Diane Pettit Baig said the family has suffered a terrible loss from which they’ll probably never recover.
And the victim’s daughter, just three weeks old when her mother died, will never know her mother.
The victim’s father said in his statement to the court that the day he lost his daughter will be forever etched into this memory and that he now knows what it is to be broken.
“I feel incomplete like a puzzle that has been put together all wrong,” he said.
The victim’s mother also gave an emotional statement saying that if her daughter was alive today, she would have graduated from high school this year.
Neither of the accused had records prior to this incident.
The 16-year-old accused has suffered mental, physical and sexual abuse in the past and has been diagnosed by the court’s clinical team with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression disorder.
The 17-year-old accused likely has fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, said her lawyer and the Crown.
The court heard both girls have expressed remorse over their role in the victim’s death and have showed they are willing to become better people through rehabilitation programs.
Both of the accused also have to submit their DNA to the police and were issued a 10-year weapons ban.
Neither accused can be named in accordance with the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
