Two men admit to helping move 8-year-old Edmonton girl's body after 2023 homicide

Yahoo

17 hours ago

Two men pleaded guilty Friday for their role in the 2023 disappearance of a child who was later found dead.
The pair admitted they were part of a group that participated in moving an eight-year-old girl's body from an Edmonton apartment to Maskwacis, Alta., where police found her in the bed of a truck.
The girl can't be identified due to a publication ban. According to court records, separate court-ordered publication bans are also in effect for several of the other people involved in the case, including the two men who entered guilty pleas for indignity to a body.
Court of King's Bench Justice Steven Mandziuk gave both men sentences of two years and nine months, agreeing to a joint submission from the Crown and defence for a sentence ranging between two and three years.
With enhanced credit for time they've already spent in custody since being arrested in April 2023, each is considered to have already served their sentence.
The courtroom was full of the girl's family members on Friday, many wearing shirts with the girl's face.
"The victim here was an eight-year-old girl — the very picture of vulnerability. And the word indignity to remains doesn't really capture what happens in these types of crimes," Mandziuk said.
"It was barbaric, callous and inhumane, and the product of a very, very poor decision."
Two other men were also arrested and charged with accessory to murder and indignity to a dead body in April 2023. A 29-year-old woman is charged with first-degree murder in the case — she has yet to go to trial.
Court heard that the woman was looking after the young girl at the time, but she is not a biological relative of hers.
'She had so much joy'
Reading a victim impact statement in court on Friday, the girl's grandmother said the loss left the family broken.
"I think of what she must have went through and it haunts me every time. I miss my baby girl so much," she said.
"She loved her cousins and her family so much. She had so much joy. I'm scared for my other grandchildren."
The girl's father said in his victim impact statement that he now struggles with fear that everyone could pose a risk of harming his children.
"This horrendous tragedy led me down a dark, cold road — one that stripped me of any trust or faith I ever had in anyone or anything."
According to an agreed statement of facts read in court, one of the men who pleaded guilty on Friday is a family member of the woman charged with murder, while the other was a friend of hers.
That man, who is 68, came to the woman's apartment on the evening of April 22, 2023, and saw the eight-year-old girl's body, the agreed facts say. The next day, he drove the woman south of the city to Maskwacis, knowing that the girl's body was left behind, and no one had called an ambulance.
He then drove three other men from Maskwacis to Edmonton, including the 27-year-old who's now been sentenced alongside him.
The younger man told another person in the car after they started driving, "They were going to move a body but not whose body."
The court heard that at the apartment, a different man put the girl's body in a hockey bag and loaded it into the trunk of the car. The group then drove back to Maskwacis.
The girl's body was discovered during a police search five days later, on April 28, 2023.
Mandziuk said the loss of a child, especially in a such traumatic way, has a profound and lasting impact on the people left behind.
"On no level is this acceptable — no level. And it's a cold-hearted action."