Riverdale Actor Ryan Grantham Receives Life Sentence for Murder: In March 2020, Canadian actor Ryan Grantham shot his mother to death. He was found guilty and given a life sentence.
The 24-year-old, who is best known for his role as Jeffery Augustine in the Riverdale teen drama as well as for appearances in the television hit Supernatural and the 2010 movie Diary of a Wimpy Kid, was sentenced last week after entering a plea of guilty to second-degree murder earlier this year.
According to the prosecution, on March 31, 2020, Grantham fatally shot his mother, Barbara Waite, 64, who was playing the piano in their Squamish, British Columbia, home. The young man, who was 21 at the time, is accused of packing his car the following day with three firearms, Molotov cocktails, ammunition, and a map with the address of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s residence.
In a video recorded on his Go-Pro camera after the killing, Grantham confessed to the crime, filming his mother’s body while saying: “I shot her in the back of the head. In the moments after, she would have known it was me.”
He went on to state that he planned to kill Trudeau and considered committing a mass shooting at his school, Simon Fraser University. Instead, he drove to Vancouver police to turn himself in. Grantham has been imprisoned since 1 April 2020.
‘Riverdale’ actor Ryan Grantham has been sentenced to life in prison for murdering his mother https://t.co/2CZUX2CpWt
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) September 22, 2022
According to his attorney Chris Johnson, Grantham has serious mental health issues. “The psychiatrists agreed that at the time of this horrendous event he was suffering from a major depressive disorder and a cannabis use disorder, among other things,” Johnson told the Hollywood Reporter.
Before handing down the decision, British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Kathleen Ker called the case “tragic” and “heartbreaking.” She added that it was a “saving grace” that Grantham chose to turn himself in and not commit mass murder. Judge Ker decided that Grantham must serve 14 years before being eligible to apply for parole.
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