When Ryan Grantham shot and killed his mother on March 31, 2020, he meant it as a prelude to the violent rampage he was already planning. The 24-year-old British Columbia actor had accumulated an arsenal, including guns, ammunition, and Molotov cocktails to be used on his intended target, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but decided to kill his mother to spare her the anguish of his planned murder-suicide. After rehearsing his mother's killing, and even taking videos describing his intentions, he then shot his 64-year-old mother, Barbara Waite, in the head while she was playing the piano in the Squamish, B.C. townhouse in which they both resided.
Leaving his mother's body behind to be found later, he packed his arsenal into his car and began driving towards Ottawa. Given the distance involved, he soon reconsidered his target and began planning a mass murder in a closer public location (such as Simon Fraser University where he had been a student.) After testing out one of his Molotov cocktails in a remote area, he then turned himself over to police who charged him with his mother's murder. Since his arrest, Grantham has undergone multiple forensic assessments as mental health professionals attempted to determine his mental state.
Reports submitted to the court indicated that the defendant had been experiencing intense clinical depression in the months leading up to his mother's murder. He had also purchased new firearms despite already being a gun owner and member of a local gun club. In her case for the prosecution, Crown Prosecutor Michaela Donnelly outlined the clear premeditation shown by the defendant before and after his mother's death. In what she described as a "heartbreaking breach of trust," Donnelly said that Grantham " was seeking to save his mother from something he was s going to do ... That is something different than altruism," She also added that "Barbara Waite loved her son very much, was an excellent parent and in her mind had no reason to fear him." Grantham has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder which carries an automatic life sentence. The Crown is also asking that he be ineligible for parole for at least seventeen years. Court proceedings are expected to wrap up shortly.
Ryan Grantham has been acting since he was nine years old and has appeared in numerous B.C.-based TV shows. These include Supernatural, Riverdale, and iZombie. He has also appeared in films such as Diary of a Wimpy Kid and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.
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