Couple ‘equally guilty’ in ‘disturbing’ murder

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This article was published 29/02/2024 (766 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Grant Redhead’s battered and bludgeoned body was dumped in Gods River in August 2021 and has never been found.

His killers, cousin Marisa Redhead and her boyfriend, Keith Trout, have been sentenced to life in prison for a prolonged slaying a judge described as “brutal and disturbing.”

“This was a horrible crime, one which was committed in such a way that the deceased’s family has been denied closure,” King’s Bench Justice Rick Saull said at a sentencing hearing in Thompson this month.

Trout and Marisa Redhead “had plenty of time to cease and desist … all the while the deceased was begging for his life.”

Trout, 44, and Redhead, 31, were each convicted of second-degree murder following a jury trial last fall.

Jurors were told Grant Redhead, 38, had been visiting the couple Aug. 19, 2021, at their Shamattawa home. They were sniffing lacquer together when an argument erupted and he was beaten, smothered with a garbage bag for several minutes and bludgeoned with an axe.

Three days later, Grant Redhead’s sister reported him missing. It sparked extensive air and ground searches over the next several weeks. He was never found.

On Oct. 2, 2021, Trout turned himself in to Shamattawa RCMP and confessed to the killing. Marisa Redhead was arrested two days later.

Trout and Marisa Redhead each provided police statements admitting their involvement in the killing, but pointed the finger at the other as the primary attacker.

“I find the two accused are equally guilty of killing the deceased,” Saull said.

Grant Redhead’s death “did not come easily. A considerable time passed between the initial assault and the death. Both accused were responsible.”

Marisa Redhead claimed Grant had hugged her, sending Trout into a jealous rage. Redhead told police that as Trout beat Grant, she blocked the doorway so he couldn’t escape.

Trout, Redhead told police, “blasted the music… so no one would hear (Grant) scream.”

As the attack continued in the bathroom, Grant was “begging for his life,” before Trout bludgeoned his head with an axe, she said.

A plastic garbage bag was placed over Grant’s head before Trout ran the bathtub and put his body under water.

In his own police statement, Trout claimed Marisa and Grant got into a shoving match over a dispute involving Marisa’s sister. Trout said he was grappling with Grant when Marisa grabbed a knife and stabbed Grant two or three times.

The two men continued to fight and fell to the floor, Trout told police, when Marisa grabbed an axe and with a “golf-style swing” hit Grant in the head, knocking him unconscious. Trout said his girlfriend wrapped a shoelace around Grant’s neck and told Trout to hold onto one end while she pulled the other for several minutes.

Trout and Marisa Redhead each told police Grant Redhead’s body was placed in a blue tote bin and taken to the Gods River, where the body was dumped in the water. The tote bin was seized from the couple’s home and found to contain Grant Redhead’s DNA.

Each accused admitted to destroying evidence by cleaning blood at the house and burning the axe and Grant Redhead’s clothing in a bushy area near the local airport.

In a closing address to jurors last October, prosecutor Mike Himmelman urged them to reject any claims by the defence the two accused were too intoxicated to form the intent for murder, noting they both provided detailed police statements and had the “presence of mind” to conceal evidence.

The minimum sentence for second-degree murder is life in prison with no chance of parole for at least 10 years.

Saull ordered that Trout serve 15 years before he is eligible for parole and that Redhead serve 13 years, finding she had more realistic prospects for rehabilitation.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca