Riverdale Actor Ryan Grantham To Serve Life Sentence For Murdering Mother

Former Riverdale and Diary of a Wimpy Kid actor Ryan Grantham has been sentenced to life imprisonment behind bars without the possibility of parole for 14 years for killing his mother, Barbara Grantham. Grantham had surrendered to police on March 31, 2020.

Ryan was sentenced by British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Kathleen Ker in Vancouver. He has been detained for the past two and a half years after being charged with first-degree murder, according to Vancouver police.

The case

The actor was convicted guilty of fatally shooting his 64-year-old mother. In making her decision, Kathleen recalled several disturbing details of the incident disclosed during the sentencing hearing in June. Ker said that Grantham's realisation of truth and understanding of his psychological served as a saving grace because his diary revealed some horrific crimes he was about to undertake after killing his mother.

Grantham, then 21, had shot his mother in the back of her head with a.22 rifle while she played the piano in their Squamish home on March 31, 2020. The crime occurred in the family's Squamish home in Vancouver. He recorded a video shortly after the murder, in which he confesses to the killing and displays his mother’s body. The video was exhibited in court during the hearing.

Grantham wrapped the body in a sheet, set lit candles around it, and hung a rosary from the piano before travelling east to Ottawa in a car loaded with firearms, ammo, and cocktails to assassinate Prime Minister Justin Trudeau the next day.

He travelled to Hope, British Columbia, where he turned around and decided to surrender instead of proceeding with his idea of perpetrating a mass massacre at Simon Fraser University, where he was enrolled, or on the Lions Gate Bridge. He soon drove to the Vancouver Police Department office in East Vancouver and confessed to the crime.

Prosecutors had urged that Grantham should be denied parole for up to 18 years during a hearing earlier this year. While the actor's defence team suggested a 12-year sentence, Justice Ker sentenced him to life imprisonment with parole ineligibility for 14 years.

Grantham portrayed the role of Jeffrey Augustine in the fourth season of the popular show Riverdale in 2019. The actor, who began his career in 2007, also appeared in the 2010 hit film Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

Grantham, who has been in a mental health programme since his arrest, is being prepared for transfer to a more permanent facility, according to reports. As per law, a second-degree murder charge carries a life sentence with no possibility of release for 10 to 25 years in British Columbia.