BURST
Warning: this story contains details some readers may find disturbing.
A judge has accepted a plea to manslaughter in a child abuse case that prompted an unprecedented public protest from Edmonton police — but prosecutors say the accused is not being offered the eight-year sentence police initially claimed.
Dozens packed a courtroom in Edmonton Wednesday to hear the woman’s guilty plea, a day after Edmonton police sent a letter to justice ministry officials protesting the Crown’s decision to agree to a plea from murder to manslaughter.
After hearing grim details of the eight-year-old’s final moments, Justice Jody Fraser accepted the woman’s plea to the lesser charge. Dates for sentencing will be set Sept. 19.
The girl’s loved ones wept as the Crown described the abuse she suffered. They later marched out chanting “no justice, no peace.”
“Today we’re very unhappy about what the decision was,” the girl’s aunt said outside court. “We don’t feel like justice was served here today.”
“She tortured her,” the aunt said of the accused. “She did horrible, horrible things … what she did to my niece, no human being should ever have to go through.”
No one in court directly mentioned the EPS letter, which loomed silently over the proceedings. It landed like a bombshell Tuesday when EPS released the correspondence to media, detailing the service’s protest to the assistant deputy minister in charge of the Alberta Crown Prosecution Service.
The letter claimed EPS had learned the accused — who can’t be named under a publication ban — would be offered an eight-year sentence in exchange for a plea to manslaughter, which EPS’s lead lawyer called “a significant miscarriage of justice.”
EPS offered the assistant deputy minister an ultimatum: review the proposed deal, or face a public-relations campaign from police including the release of details about the abuse the girl suffered.
No joint sentence submission: Crown
In court Wednesday, prosecutor Terry Hofmann said the Crown has agreed to a plea from second-degree murder to manslaughter, but added no joint submission is on the table. He expects Crown and defence to ask for competing sentences.
Hofmann said it was “misinformation” that the woman was ever charged with first-degree murder, saying she was charged under a section covering both second-degree and premeditated murder.
Two people accused of helping move the girl’s body have cases before the courts, and “public commentary” could prejudice their rights to a fair trial, he added.
The accused, meanwhile, sat in the prisoner’s box, her face turned away from the victim’s loved ones and concealed by her long, black hair. It is unclear whether she reacted as Hofmann read an agreed statement of facts describing the girl’s final days.
The accused was living with her three biological children and the eight-year-old victim at an apartment in west Edmonton. On April 22, 2023, a friend came over to drink and use methamphetamine. The two were in the bathroom when the children started fussing.
When the woman returned to the bathroom, she said “something had happened” and asked for the man’s help. He went to the other room and saw the little girl on the floor, unconscious and bleeding beneath a hole in the wall.
“It is unknown how this head injury occurred,” Hofmann told court.
Instead of calling 911, the woman focused on what to do with the girl’s body. She called several associates, who arrived and placed the child in a hockey bag. They then dumped the bag in the bed of an abandoned pickup on Samson Cree Nation.
Two of the men recently pleaded guilty to committing an indignity to the girl’s body and received sentences of just under three years.
The woman’s friend later told his mom what happened and provided a statement to police. When police contacted the accused, she refused a welfare check and said everything was fine. She told them the girl had been picked up by her mother.
Police located the girl’s body April 28, four days after she had been reported missing. A doctor who examined her found evidence of “chronic” child abuse, including fractured bones that had previously healed. She was also suffering from sepsis due to a broken tooth, which reduced her chances of surviving the head injury, the doctor said.
Two of the woman’s biological children — aged four, five and two at the time of the girl’s death — later spoke to police and said the victim was subject to “regular abuse” by the accused.
‘They’re not listening to us’
The girl’s family said police did not contact them before releasing the letter. Nonetheless, they support the move.
“We trust the police,” said the girl’s aunt. “They found her, they brought her home to us, and now whatever it is they’re doing, they’re obviously here to help us.”
The girl’s loved ones described a fraught relationship with the Crown. Some said they found out about Wednesday’s court hearing by reading media reports.
“They’re not listening to us, they’re silencing us, they’re saying there’s nothing we can do,” said one.
Details about the decision to accept the plea to the lesser charge have been scant, family said.
“They said (it’s) because of the evidence they have, (and) they can’t give us the evidence because it’s still an ongoing investigation,” the girl’s aunt said. “But at the end of the day we heard the evidence, we heard what happened to her, and this is not a manslaughter.”
Some have called EPS’s move a significant overreach.
Steve Smith, an Edmonton defence lawyer, said to describe the situation as a “crisis” would be “dramatically understating it.”
“Edmontonians and Canadians generally should look down south and think hard about whether we want to expand law enforcement’s political influence,” he said in a social media post .
Smith said there is “ frequently a gulf” between what happened and what can be proven in court. He called EPS’s ultimatum to the Crown “thuggish” and said the Crown is at a disadvantage in any public feud because it is “very limited” in what it can say about an active case.
“ I promise you that Crown prosecutors want to convict people who do bad things — really and truly,” he added.
Patrick Baillie, a lawyer and psychologist in Calgary, said police and prosecutors have different responsibilities. Even Law & Order, one of the most popular legal drama of all time, notes in its opening lines that police and prosecutors are “separate yet equally important” groups, he said.
“Police do the investigation. After that, based on many factors, the Crown makes strategic decisions,” he said. “I understand the frustration experienced by police, but demanding a different outcome risks an accusation of bias.”
‘Not the first straw’
Megan Hankewich, EPS’s executive director of legal services and the letter’s author, said the girl’s death is “one of the most horrifying” child abuse cases the police service has ever seen.
The decision to intervene was the culmination of 10 years of frustration with the prosecution service, she told reporters at a Wednesday afternoon news conference.
“We exhausted every consultation and collaborative step in our effort to achieve better public safety and a better criminal justice system,” said Hankewich, who in the past worked for the Crown. “We sought to own our own shortcomings … and maintain consistent, positive lines of communication with senior and junior prosecutors.”
“Despite our efforts in this lengthy period, we’ve grown only more frustrated, feeling further than ever from having our concerns addressed. In short, this is not the first straw.”
Hankewich said the Supreme Court case of R. v. Nixon provides a “legitimate path” for assistant deputy justice minister Kim Goddard to review the case and scrap any plea arrangement. EPS released the letter only after Goddard declined, Hankewich said.
Asked where she heard the Crown had offered the accused eight years, Hankewich said that’s what officers were told by the Crown, and that Goddard did not say the information was inaccurate.
At no time had the Crown suggested there were “deficiencies” in the police investigation that would justify a lesser charge, Hankewich added.
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