Sentencing begins for Nanaimo woman who murdered and dismembered ex-boyfriend
Paris Laroche told undercover officers the abuse she suffered from Sidney Mantee drove her to kill him
WARNING: This story contains graphic and disturbing details.
The sentencing hearing for the Nanaimo woman convicted of murdering and dismembering her ex-partner, Sidney Mantee, started Friday in Vancouver.
Paris Laroche, 29, was found guilty of second-degree murder and of interfering and offering indignities to a human body last year.
Second-degree murder comes with an automatic life sentence. The main issue in dispute is how long Laroche will have to wait until she can apply to be considered for parole.
Crown prosecutor Nick Barber is asking for a period of 15 years, calling the crimes "graphic and egregious... an affront to the whole community."
Defence counsel Glen Orris said the sentence minimum of 10 years of parole ineligibility is appropriate because Laroche has no previous criminal record or history of violence, and does not represent a danger to the community.
At the time of the murder, Laroche and Mantee were estranged but still living in the same Nanaimo one-bedroom apartment.
The court heard many gruesome details during the trial, beginning with March 5, 2020, when Laroche repeatedly hit Mantee in the head with a hammer while he slept on a mattress on the living room floor. When he didn't die immediately, she slit his throat.
In his reasons for judgment, Justice Robin Baird wrote that over several months Laroche "painstakingly and methodically eviscerated and dismembered his corpse, cut, rendered or broke it down into pieces suitable for carry in small bags or knapsacks, and disposed of his remains in various locations around Nanaimo."
Laroche did not testify at trial. However, she confessed to killing and dismembering Mantee to two undercover police officers who befriended her in a sting operation.
Laroche told the undercover officers that Mantee's abuse — which she claimed included death threats and physical assaults — drove her to kill him, saying, "It was my life or his."
What finally made her finally "snap," she told the officers, was Mantee deliberately injuring her cat.
Psychiatric reports prepared for the trial said Laroche did not have a mental illness or a psychiatric disorder but that she did have trauma-related symptoms in the immediate run-up to the homicide, which are features of battered spouse syndrome.
Laroche was originally charged with first-degree murder. In finding her guilty of the lesser charge, Baird said although she acted intentionally, the killing was not planned and deliberate.
Sidney Mantee was originally from Saskatchewan Treaty 4 territory.
Nanaimo RCMP issued a public appeal to help locate the 32-year-old Indigenous man in October 2020 after the Mantee family alerted them of his disappearance.
In her victim impact statement Friday, Mantee's mother addressed Laroche directly as she sat in the prisoner's box.
"You are the evilest person I know," said Emma Mantee. "You threw him away like he was garbage."
Baird has reserved his sentencing decision until next week.
For anyone affected by family or intimate partner violence, there is support available through crisis lines and local support services. If you're in immediate danger or fear for your safety or that of others around you, please call 911.