Ryan Grantham is sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his mother
Ryan Grantham, a Riverdale and Diary of a Wimpy Kid actor, has been sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his mother in 2020. In 14 years, he will be eligible for parole.
British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Kathleen Ker handed down the textbook second-degree murder sentence in Vancouver on September 21. With the sentence already determined by the statutes of the Canadian province, the only true unknown was how long Grantham, 24, would have to wait before applying for parole.
Nominated for a Leo Award Grantham surrendered to police on March 31, 2020, shortly after killing his 64-year-old mother Barbara Waite in the back of the head in the family’s Squamish home, just north of Vancouver.
In British Columbia, a second-degree murder charge carries a sentence of 10 to 25 years in prison without the possibility of parole. Prosecutors had recommended that Grantham get a parole ineligibility of up to 18 years during a sentencing hearing earlier this year. The former actor’s defense team recommended a sentence of 12 years.
Grantham has been in custody for the past 212 years after being accused with first-degree murder, law enforcement officials in Vancouver confirmed to Deadline today. Participating in a mental health program since his arrest, Grantham is in the process of being readied for transfer to a more permanent facility, sources say.
With about 30 credits on his résumé, Grantham noticeably played Jeffrey Augustine on the fourth season of the soapy CW hi Riverdale in 2019. While appearing briefly, the character had a pivotal role in the Archie Comics-based show.
It was Jeffrey Augustine who killed Fred Andrews (the late Luke Perry) on the series in a hit-and-run that changed almost everything on the show. Starting his career back in 2007, Grantham also appeared in the 2010 movie Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and episodes of Supernatural and iZombie.
It later was revealed in court that after the murder of his mother, Grantham took video of the body and confessed to the killing on-camera. A day later, after carefully arranging the body in a semi-religious scene, Grantham hit the road. With ever-changing intent, he at one point was going to try to kill Canadian PM Justin Trudeau, as he also wrote in a journal entered as evidence.
Grantham also considered committing a mass shooting at Vancouver’s Simon Fraser University or on the iconic Lions Gate Bridge.
Thankfully, Grantham instead went to East Vancouver police station and surrendered. “I killed my mother,” he is reported to have bluntly declared to police at the front desk of the station.
Back in March, the actor expressed sorrow at what he had done. “In the face of something so horrible, saying sorry seems so pointless,” Grantham told the Vancouver court and Justice Ker, reading from a sheet of paper. “But from every fiber of my being, I am sorry.”
SOURCE: www.ghnewslive.com
