‘Monster’ to serve at least 16 years for killing wife, two young children

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This article was published 24/10/2024 (320 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Patrick Murphy wiped tears from his eyes as he locked his gaze on the man who murdered his daughter and two young grandchildren, and listened as a Crown attorney gave voice to his pain in a Winnipeg courtroom Thursday.

“No parent should lose a child to violence,” Murphy said in a victim impact statement read out in court by Crown attorney Dayna Queau-Guzzi at a sentencing hearing for Trevis Zane McLeod. “No grandparent should ever have to imagine that terror-filled last moment of an innocent grandchild’s life.”

“It has always been my belief and experience that a father’s job is to love and protect their family from the dangers of the world,” Murphy read. “I will never understand how you, Trevis, went from being a father who should have protected his family to being a monstrous thing they needed protection from.”

McLeod, 52, pleaded guilty last month to three counts of second-degree murder for killing his 32-year-old common-law wife, Shantelle Murphy, and their two children, six-year-old Isabella and three-year-old Mason. The victims were bludgeoned to death in their Portage la Prairie duplex, which McLeod then set on fire on April 10, 2022.

The minimum sentence for second-degree murder is life in prison with no chance to apply for parole for 10 years.

Queau-Guzzi and Crown attorney Chris Vanderhooft, as well as defence lawyers Lisa LaBossiere and Gerri Wiebe, jointly recommended McLeod be ordered to serve 16 years in prison before he can apply for parole.

On Thursday, Manitoba Court of King’s Bench Justice Chris Martin endorsed the recommendation.

“This is, after 16 years on the bench, about as difficult as it gets,” Martin said. “It is clearly about the worst case I have ever dealt with in my career.”

“It is clearly about the worst case I have ever dealt with in my career.”–Justice Chris Martin

Court heard the joint recommendation was the result of a plea bargain that took into consideration McLeod’s history of substance abuse-induced mental issues, including paranoia and delusions, and his guilty pleas, which spared family members the trauma of enduring a trial.

Judges are bound to accept a joint recommendation unless it’s clearly unfit.

“The disposition arranged by counsel is one I would consider appropriate and proper,” Martin said.

While McLeod will be able to apply for parole after serving 16 years in custody, it will be up to the Parole Board of Canada to decide if he can be safely released to the community, Martin said.

“We know that it is very rare for somebody charged with these kinds of offences to be released when their period of parole ineligibility is up,” he said.

A court-ordered forensic assessment completed in August found no evidence that McLeod was suffering from a mental disorder at the time of the deaths that would exempt him from criminal responsibility. McLeod has a history meth use and past hospitalizations related to delusions and other mental concerns arising from his use of the drug.

Court heard McLeod had not used meth for several weeks at the time of the killings.

The circumstances of the killings were laid out in an agreed statement of facts previously provided to court.

A psychiatric assessment completed shortly after his arrest reported that McLeod alleged he was experiencing delusions and hallucinations that Murphy and other “bad actors” were sexually abusing the children and were scheming to sexually traffic them. He killed the children to protect them from further harm.

McLeod said on the night of the slayings, he drank seven or eight beers in the living room before grabbing a large metal pipe. An hour later, he went to the children’s bedroom, told them he loved them and then bludgeoned each of them in the head.

McLeod then went into the master bedroom, awakened Murphy, and killed her.

McLeod knocked on the bedroom door of his adult son from another relationship, and told him they had to leave. Court heard that McLeod’s son has cognitive challenges and has been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Before leaving the house, McLeod lit some of Isabella’s drawings on fire in the living room.

Neighbours in the adjoining duplex unit reported hearing loud banging noises around 12:40 a.m. and then noticing the smell of smoke before a fire alarm went off. As they left the building with their children, the neighbours saw McLeod leave his unit with a “blank look on his face.”

Minutes later, McLeod banged on a window at his brother’s house. He appeared “out of it” and said “they’re dead,” his brother told investigators. McLeod moved on to the home of his sister. He punched her in the face and said, “This is your fault.”

Two-and-a-half hours later, with blood on his pants, shirt and jacket, McLeod knocked on a stranger’s door. He claimed he had been pushed into a ditch and asked that a taxi be called for him. The woman called her husband, a firefighter who, at that moment, was working to extinguish the blaze at McLeod’s house.

RCMP were alerted to McLeod’s location and he was arrested a short time later, says the agreed statement of facts.

Court records show he was charged with one count of simple assault and released later that same day. It wasn’t until five days later that he was re-arrested and charged with arson and three counts of murder.

McLeod never denied killing his family, but had the case gone to trial, convictions were not certain, given evidence of the delusions he was experiencing at the time, LaBossiere said.

“There is evidence that could have been presented at trial of how his thinking was impacted,” she said. “He thought their deaths needed to occur to stop their pain.“

McLeod has a history of domestic violence, including one conviction of assaulting Murphy and three convictions for assaulting a previous domestic partner over 15 years.

“My heart and mind can’t comprehend how someone can murder their family in such a cold, calculated and brutal manner and show absolutely no emotion or remorse for it,” Shantelle Murphy’s mother, Tammi St. Jean, said in a victim impact statement read out in court.

“As a mother and grandmother, there will never be enough years that can be given to this monster that will ever make up for all he has taken and I hope and I pray that when the time comes for him to leave prison, he leaves it the same way my daughter and grandchildren left that house,” she said.

McLeod, in a brief address to court, offered his “deepest apologies… for my actions that ended the lives of three people I loved very much.”

“There isn’t a day that I don’t think of them and wish I could have gone back and gotten help,” he said.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca