Ryan Grantham, a 24-year-old Canadian actor who appeared in Riverdale and Diary of a Wimpy Kid, has been sentenced to life in prison for fatally shooting his mother in 2020.
Grantham was initially charged with first-degree murder, but in March the actor pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for killing his mother, Barbara Waite. In his sentencing on Wednesday, the British Columbia Supreme Court in Vancouver imposed a mandatory term of life in prison for the offense, prosecutors said in a statement to BuzzFeed News.
Grantham is not eligible to apply for parole until he has served 14 years behind bars. He is also banned for life from owning a firearm.
“This is something that we anticipated,” Talia Armstrong, one of the lawyers representing Grantham, told BuzzFeed News. “We originally asked for 12 years, and the prosecutors asked for 17 to 18 years, so the judge fell at 14, which we’re very happy about.”
In 2020, Grantham, who was 21 at the time, shot this mother in the back of her head while she played the piano. Shortly after the murder, Grantham filmed himself and the crime scene on a GoPro camera and, in the video, confessed to the killing.
The next day, he stocked up his car with guns and ammunition and began driving east with the intent of killing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, prosecutors said. But Grantham changed his mind and, instead of going after Trudeau, considered carrying out a mass shooting at his alma mater, Simon Fraser University.
Ultimately, though, Grantham decided to turn himself in to the police.
“I cannot explain or justify my actions. I have no excuse,” Grantham said in a statement to the court in June, the CBC reported. “It hurts me to think how badly I’ve wasted my life.”