Woman pleads guilty, sentenced to life in prison in grandmother’s grisly murder

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This article was published 23/12/2022 (999 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A 24-year-old Manitoba woman has been sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 10 years after admitting to bludgeoning her grandmother to death with an axe.

Jasmine Owen pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the May 24, 2021 killing of 67-year-old Maggie Owen on Little Grand Rapids First Nation.

“There should be no doubt this is a sad and egregious set of circumstances,” King’s Bench Justice Joan McKelvey said Thursday of the unprovoked slaying.

Court heard Jasmine Owen lives with bipolar disorder and was intoxicated by alcohol at the time of the murder. A forensic psychiatric report prepared for court found she was responsible for her actions at the time of the killing and knew what she did was wrong.

Jasmine Owen turned up at her grandmother’s home demanding entry around 10:30 p.m., with Maggie Owen replying: “No, you’re drunk, you will do something,” Crown attorney Andrew Clark told court, reading from an agreed statement of facts.

Jasmine Owen “promised she wouldn’t do anything” and was let into the house, after which an argument arose and she suffered a superficial knife wound.

Angered, she chased her grandmother outside with an axe, striking her in the head 10 times.

“This was a brutal attack,” Clark said.

Owen attempted to enlist the help of three women who arrived at the house to take her grandmother’s body back inside “to make it look like she was asleep,” said the agreed statement of facts. “Jasmine said they should cook or eat Maggie’s body raw so they don’t get caught.”

Police arrived and found Maggie Owen’s body outside. Jasmine Owen was taken to the nursing station for treatment, where she admitted to attacking her grandmother.

She has several prior convictions for assault, but at the time of her arrest for murder had never spent more than 45 days in custody.

She suffers from a mental disability, began abusing alcohol when she was under the age of 10 and, as a teen, began abusing methamphetamine, said her lawyer Matt Munce.

She suffers “extreme guilt” for the killing, and after a forensic report found she was responsible for her actions, immediately wanted to enter a guilty plea, Munce said.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca