Riverdale actor Ryan Grantham has been sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to the murder of his mother, Barbara Waite, in 2020.
The actor, known for playing Jeffery Augustine in the American teen drama, was sentenced on Wednesday in the Supreme Court of British Columbia, Canada. TMZ reports that.
He is ineligible for parole for 14 years.
Grantham pleaded guilty to first degree murder after initially being charged with first degree murder.
He shot Waite in the back of the head while she was playing the piano at their home on March 31, 2020, in Squamish, north of Vancouver.
The court heard that Grantham had practiced murdering his mother and had secretly approached her with a gun the previous days, as well as recording a four-minute confession video showing the body.
Prosecutors also said the 24-year-old former child star packed his car the next day with three rifles, ammunition and 12 Molotov cocktails and headed east with camping supplies and directions to Justin Trudeau’s Ottawa residence, Rideau Cottage.
After the shooting, he left his mother’s body in a pool of blood and drove to Hope, BC, about 130 miles by road.
Before he left, he hung a rosary on the piano and arranged candles around Waite’s body, which was discovered by his sister that evening after she began to worry after numerous missed text messages and phone calls.
After testing one of the Molotov cocktails in a remote area, Grantham made no further progress to Mr. Trudeau’s home, but reportedly turned with thoughts of committing mass violence and murder on the Lions Gate Bridge in Vancouver or at Simon Fraser University, where he was enrolled as a student.
Instead, he later drove to the Vancouver Police Department to turn himself in and confess to killing his mother.
According to the publication, prosecutors referred to psychiatric reports agreeing that Grantham was “going through an intense period of clinical depression” and experienced the urge to commit violence and commit suicide.
The veteran gun user and former gun club member also had a cannabis use disorder.
The defense pointed out that mental illness plays a major role in Grantham’s behavior and said he has “significant remorse”, also highlighting his previously clean condition and age – 21 – at the time of the crime.
At an earlier hearing, Grantham apologized for his actions in a statement and said he had “no excuse” and called his mother a “caring and compassionate” woman who had done nothing to deserve what he did to her.
“I cannot explain or justify my actions. I have no excuse,” he said. “It hurts me to think about how much I’ve wasted my life.
“In the face of something so terrible, saying sorry seems so pointless. But I’m sorry from every fiber of my being.’
Grantham, who also appeared in iZombie and Supernatural, as well as Diary of a Wimpy Kid and The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus, played Jeffery Augustine in a 2019 episode of Riverdale, a character who was pivotal in Fred Andrews’ departure (Luke Perry).
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