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Saskatoon baby killer gets adult life sentence

Feb 27, 2018 | 2:04 PM

Content Warning: descriptions of violence involving children and animals.

The teen who beat infant baby Nikosis Jace Cantre to death in July 2016 will serve an adult life sentence.

Judge Sanjeev Anand handed down the sentence Tuesday afternoon, a year-and-a-half after the girl pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in Oct. 2016.

The now 18-year-old’s name is still protected under the Youth Criminal Justice Act as the court sorts out where the teen will be sentenced. The judge will keep the ban in place for 30 days as the defence considers an appeal.

She was 16 at the time of the killing, wandering the streets after escaping from Kilburn Hall — where she was serving a youth sentence for assault.

She was taken in by Cantre’s relatives after she was found late at night asking for a place to stay.

According to a video confession played in court last December, the family provided her with food and clothes, and drank with her at their home.

The teen described walking into the baby’s room on the night of July 3 and holding him “like a mom.” She said she became angry and laid Cantre on the bed, beginning to suffocate and punch him.

“I was sick and tired of life. That’s why I hurt that baby and killed it,” she said in the video.

Defence lawyer Brian Pfefferle argued for a youth sentence, noting his client was allegedly abused by her foster father and was diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome.

He also noted she didn’t exhibit any planning in the crime.

“This was an unsophisticated, brutal and senseless murder,” he said.

“She demonstrated devastatingly foolish behaviour.”

Psychological reports submitted by the Crown indicated the teen had a history of violence, including squeezing the life out of a mouse at a pet store and nearly killing her 10-year-old cousin with morphine pills.

A representative from a federal rehabilitative program said they determined the girl wouldn’t learn from treatment under a youth sentence.

The teen apologized to the family at the end of arguments in December saying, “If this happened to my baby, I’d be really devastated.”

The family didn’t accept the apology.

“There’s no ‘sorry’ for what you did,” Cantre’s grandfather Jeffery Longman said. “Sorry isn’t going to bring him back.”

She will serve seven years before being eligible for parole.