Cross Lake woman to spend minimum 12 years in prison for grandmother’s ‘reprehensible’ murder

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This article was published 07/04/2022 (1290 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Cross Lake woman who beat her 93-year-old grandmother and then left her to die as she set her house on fire has been sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 12 years.

Leona Rosa Blacksmith, 40, was convicted of second-degree murder following a trial last year.

Edith Blacksmith died Aug. 9, 2019, after police, searching for Leona Blacksmith in connection to an unrelated assault on a different person a day earlier, pulled the senior from her burning home at Pimicikamak Cree Nation, more than 500 air kilometres north of Winnipeg.

A pathologist found Edith Blacksmith suffered blunt-force injuries to her head and body, as well as an intentionally inflicted burn wound to her left thigh, but died as the result of smoke inhalation.

According to a fire investigator, two fires were set in the home, one in a bedroom closet, another in a hallway.

“The circumstances are egregious, reprehensible and, at the same time, very sad,” Queen’s Bench Justice James Edmond said at a sentencing hearing last month.

“It is hard to imagine and unfathomable that a granddaughter would murder her vulnerable and elderly grandmother,” he said.

Court heard evidence at trial that Leona Blacksmith lives with schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder and may not have been taking her medication at the time of the killing.

Blacksmith admitted she had been drinking and using cocaine at the time. A pre-sentence report prepared for court quoted Blacksmith as saying: “I only use cocaine once in a blue moon, but when I do, I go all out.”

“The circumstance lead me to conclude that a combination of her mental illness and intoxication on the evening in question were contributing factors to this senseless, violent attack,” Edmond said. “These are significant factors in assessing her moral blameworthiness.”

A neighbour testified at trial she heard “raised voices” at Edith’s Blacksmith’s home before seeing Leona Blacksmith, who lived with her grandmother, leave the house earlier that evening.

Several witnesses who crossed paths with Leona Blacksmith in the hours immediately following the fire testified she appeared to be under the influence of drugs, erratic and jumpy, and claimed she “just finished killing someone.”

One witness told court three or four weeks prior to the killing, Leona Blacksmith said “if her granny ever died, she would burn the house down” to prevent other family members from taking it away from her.

Leona Blacksmith’s criminal record includes 10 prior convictions for assault. Court heard repeated interventions to address her mental-health issues were unsuccessful.

She was abandoned by her parents and was largely raised by her grandmother, court heard.

“The tragic part of this story is that (Edith Blacksmith) is the one who was there for her in the end and loved her throughout her life, despite her struggles,” Crown attorney Dan Angus told court last month. “She was the one person who never abandoned Ms. Blacksmith.”

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca