Riverdale actor Ryan Grantham was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his mother

Last March, Ryan Grantham – serial actor Riverdale– pleaded guilty to killing his mother, Barbara Waite, by shooting while the 64-year-old played the piano at her home in Squamish, Canada. After the long-awaited trial, in which she revealed herself macabre and surprising detailsThis week, the 24-year-old was sentenced to life in prison by the British Columbia Supreme Court for the murder.

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As published AND!, the sentence contemplates the possibility that he enjoys the conditional freedom regime after having served at least 14 years of imprisonment. In addition, the court issued an order banning him from using firearms for life. Both life imprisonment and a gun ban are mandatory for those convicted of second degree murder in British Columbia, where the trial took place.

Once the ruling was known, the actor’s attorney, Chris Johnson, told the media that his client had “worked very hard to change his life” after he was arrested for killing his mother. “He received a lot of psychological help and felt bad about his actions and dealt with them,” the lawyer said in a statement. He added: “But he hopes he can spend the rest of his life making amends.”

The details of the macabre case kept the Americans nervous. Already during the first hours of the first hearing, the court heard how the actor admitted to having tried the murder and even claimed to have recorded videos moments later. In those images, which were presented as evidence, he talks about Barbara White’s shooting and shows her body.

He also provided an unusual reason to justify the cold-blooded murder of his mother. “I didn’t want you to see the act of violence I was about to commit.” It is that after killing her, the young man went in search of a second victim. Armed with three guns, ammunition, Molotov cocktails, camping supplies and a map with directions, he traveled to eastern Canada with the idea of ​​ending the life of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

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How could he rebuild CBC, Grantham left Squamish the day after his mother’s murder with her body inside the vehicle. Before leaving the crime scene, he tested one of the explosive bombs available to him. The trip has been long. He drove for about 50 hours.

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He moved to Hope County, where he paused to think. It was there that he made the decision not to continue with his “mission” and to change course: now his plan was to commit acts of mass violence on the Lions Gate Bridge in Vancouver or at Simon Fraser University, where he is studying.

However, he once again changed his plans. Perhaps out of guilt or exhaustion, he went to the Vancouver Police Department and confessed to his crime: “I killed my mother,” he told an officer.

In the middle of the trial hearing, prosecutor Michaela Donnelly presented two psychiatric reports on the young man’s mental state, who played Jeffrey Augustine in Riverdale. Both reports agreed that Grantham was going through an intense period of clinical depression. The possibility that the young man had had impulses to commit violent acts before the murder was considered, along with constant suicidal thoughts. A possible marijuana use disorder has also been identified.

“The reasons Ryan killed his mother may seem altruistic,” Donnelly pointed out, later clarifying that Barbara White had cancer. “However, Mr. Grantham was trying to save his mother from something he was about to do … This is something other than altruism,” he later considered.

In this sense, he insisted that what the young man committed was nothing more than a “heartbreaking breach of trust” because “he was a mother who loved her son very much and had no reason to be afraid of him”.

Only on the last day of the hearing did the accused reveal how he felt about his mother: “I cannot explain or justify my actions. I have no excuses. It hurts me to think how much I’ve wasted my life. Faced with something so horrible, asking for forgiveness seems so pointless. But from every fiber of my being, I feel it. Someday, if I ever get out of prison, I hope to continue on this path to improve, “he said.

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