Warning: This story contains extremely graphic details.
The publication ban protecting the identity of a girl who killed a six-week-old baby in Saskatoon has been lifted.
Jacqueline Henderson received an adult sentence last month in Saskatoon Provincial Court for the July 2016 killing of Nikosis Jace Cantre, who died of blunt force trauma to the head. Henderson pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in October and was sentenced to life in prison with no parole eligibility for seven years.
The identity of young offenders is protected by a publication ban under the Youth Criminal Justice Act. In most cases, if the offender is sentenced as an adult, their identity can be made public. Henderson’s name remained under a publication ban during a 30-day appeal period. Because the defence did not appeal the judge’s decision to sentence her as an adult, the ban is now lifted.
Details of Henderson’s violent past were read in court during her sentencing hearing in December.
A report states, when Henderson was born in October 1999, her mother said in hospital, “Get that thing away from me.” She was adopted days after she was born and lived in a transient home with alcoholism and abuse.
She lived with her aunt and uncle who died in 2012 and 2015, respectively. Henderson bounced around the foster care system. She suffered emotional, sexual and physical abuse, according to a Gladue report.
At one point, while staying with family, her eight-year-old cousin almost died when Henderson gave her morphine, according to a report.
In 2010, she was removed from her aunt and uncle’s home because she was found harming animals. She had a history of catching, hanging and skinning them alive, according to a report read in court.
Henderson started a group home on fire in 2015 in North Battleford and damaged it to the point it was unlivable.
Court heard she has a history of threatening and violent behaviour toward staff and other residents of group homes and youth correctional centres. In May 2016, she became upset she couldn’t go to a smudging ceremony so she threw the contents of her room against the door, wailed, shrieked and threatened staff.
“(You’re) lucky this door is closed or I’d slit your throats and skin you like those dogs,” she said.
Henderson planned to run away from a youth centre in 2015 when she was in a vehicle with another staff member. She grabbed the worker by the hair, bit and scratched her before trying to pull the worker’s head back by the hair in an attempt to snap her neck, court heard.
Henderson escaped while serving an open-custody sentence at Kilburn Hall in July 2016 and roamed the streets in Saskatoon looking for a place to stay.
Henderson told a woman she escaped from a group home in Prince Albert. The stranger gave her food, clothing and tried to take her to EGADZ, a youth centre, but it was closed, according to an agreed statement of facts.
The woman eventually took her to a home in the 200 block of Waterloo Crescent, where Nikosis and his family lived. The teen had never met anyone in the home prior, but they agreed to let her stay.
Her lawyer has said there’s no motive for the crime. The teen told a police officer after her arrest she was angry and took her anger out on the baby.
“I was sick and tired of life,” she said. “That’s why I hurt that baby and I killed it.”
The baby’s mom, Alyssa Bird, found her son in his play pen badly beaten — bruised, bloody, swollen, scratched and gasping for air. He died of blunt force trauma to the head after Henderson choked, punched, kicked and stabbed Nikosis with a metal nail.
Judge Sanjeev Anand said the killing was unsophisticated and brutal. He suggested the teen serve her sentence at the Regional Psychiatric Centre.
“My hope is that you will take advantage of any and all supports that are offered to you while you’re serving your time in custody,” Anand told Henderson during her sentencing.
He said an adult sentence is appropriate, in part, because the Crown proved Henderson’s immaturity and impulsiveness, which contributed to the killing, is not related to her age but her fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.
“The consensus is that she will need lifelong care because she will not outgrow the impulsivity and immaturity associated with her FASD diagnosis,” the judge told court.
The Crown demonstrated a youth sentence would not hold Henderson accountable for what she did.
Court heard Henderson has no parental guidance, was adopted days after she was born and lived in a transient home with alcoholism and abuse.
The sentence Henderson received — life in prison with no parole eligibility for seven years — is automatic for second-degree murder offences, under Canada’s Criminal Code, for people sentenced as adults but who were 16 or 17 at the time of the crime. After credit for time served, Henderson could be eligible for parole in 2023.
