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Ryan Grantham, a Canadian actor whose roles have appeared in “Riverdale,” “Diary of a Wimpy Kid,” and “Supernatural,” has been given a life sentence with a 14-year parole ban for the second-degree murder of his mother, according to CBC.
The actor fatally shot his mother, Barbara Waite, in the back of the head in March 2020 as she was practising the piano at their Squamish, British Columbia, home. Grantham then recorded a GoPro video immediately after the murder, which was later played in court, in which he confesses to killing his mother and displays her body. The next day, he draped a sheet over the corpse, ringed it with lighted candles, and strung a rosary from the piano before loading a vehicle with Molotov cocktails, firearms, and ammo and heading east to Ottawa.
His goal was to assassinate Justin Trudeau, the prime minister. Instead, with plans to carry out a mass massacre at Simon Fraser University, where he was enrolled, or on the Lions Gate Bridge, he travelled to Hope, British Columbia. He ultimately made the decision to surrender himself to the East Vancouver location of the Vancouver Police Department.
Grantham’s sister gave a victim impact statement during the trial, and British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Kathleen Ker described the situation as “tragic” and “heartbreaking.” The fact that Grantham decided to give himself up and refrain from committing a mass murder, according to the judge, was a “saving grace.”
In Canada, a conviction for second-degree murder carries a mandatory life sentence, thus the question was how long Grantham would have to serve before he could ask for parole.
With roles in “iZombie,” “Unspeakable,” “Way of the Wicked,” “Riese,” and “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus,” Grantham made his acting debut at the age of nine.
