Close X
Saturday, November 2, 2024
ADVT 
National

Regina Man Convicted Of Killing Former Girlfriend To Get Adult Sentence

The Canadian Press, 06 Jul, 2017 01:28 PM
    REGINA — A young Regina man convicted of stabbing his former girlfriend to death with a hunting knife when he was 16 will be sentenced as an adult.
     
     
    A packed courtroom burst into applause Wednesday as Skylar Prockner, now 19, got an automatic life sentence with no parole for 10 years after pleading guilty earlier this year to first-degree murder in the January 2015 death of Hannah Leflar.
     
     
    Prockner didn't show any emotion as Justice Jennifer Pritchard delivered her decision. His family left the courtroom angrily shouting the sentence was unfair.
     
     
    Hannah's mother Janet Leflar said the adult sentence, which lifts the publication ban on his name, was a hollow victory.
     
     
    "We're relieved that he got the adult sentence," she said outside court. "We can finally say Skylar Prockner murdered my daughter which is a big victory for us but there are no winners today. Nobody won anything. She's still gone."
     
     
    The Crown had sought an adult sentence, while the defence had argued that the youth had no criminal record before the homicide and "has mental health issues.''
     
     
    "I didn't see how the judge could have made any other decision given the circumstances and the evidence and the obvious lack of remorse," Leflar said.
     
     
    The court had previously heard that Prockner had trouble coping with being dumped by Hannah, and that he eventually stabbed her multiple times with a hunting knife after hiding outside her house waiting for her to walk home from school.
     
     
    The 16-year-old girl was found in her Regina home by her stepfather.
     
     
     
     
    At a sentencing hearing in May, the teen apologized in court saying he was unstable at the time and wants to spend the rest of his life doing good.
     
     
    "I can't apologize enough for what I've done," he said at the hearing. "Everyone makes mistakes. It's what we do to right those wrongs that make us better."
     
     
    Prockner said he's found peace in God.
     
     
    "I know you may never forgive me for what I've done," he said. "But I will never stop asking God for forgiveness."
     
     
    At the hearing, Hannah's mother told Prockner to "burn in hell" and urged the judge not to show any mercy to the killer of her only child.
     
     
    "I will never know my daughter as an adult. I've lost my entire future because of this, a future that revolved around my daughter's plans. My future is now a blank wall,'' Leflar said.
     
     
    Hannah was an honours student who had been named the top of her class for Grade 10 just before her death.
     
     
    The sentencing hearing was told that after he and Hannah broke up, the youth had trouble coping.
     
     
    When she started dating a different boy, he hatched a plan called "Project Zombify" to recruit friends to help him attack the couple with bats and knives.
     
     
    The attack never took place because Leflar and that boyfriend broke up, but the youth kept tabs on her. When he saw she had a new boyfriend, he stabbed her to death in her home.
     
     
    A second youth, who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, is expected to be sentenced in September. (The Canadian Press, CJME, 

    MORE National ARTICLES

    Scooter Enthusiast's Round-the-World Trip Comes To Crashing Halt Near Calgary

    Scooter Enthusiast's Round-the-World Trip Comes To Crashing Halt Near Calgary
    CALGARY — A Polish man's effort to circumnavigate the globe on two wheels came to a screeching halt when his scooter was struck by a car on the TransCanada Highway east of Calgary.

    Scooter Enthusiast's Round-the-World Trip Comes To Crashing Halt Near Calgary

    Judge FindsCalgary Man Guilty Of Manslaughter In Wife's Strangulation, Burying Body In Basement

    Judge FindsCalgary Man Guilty Of Manslaughter In Wife's Strangulation, Burying Body In Basement
    CALGARY — A Calgary judge has rejected a man's argument that he acted in self-defence when he strangled his wife and buried her body in their basement.

    Judge FindsCalgary Man Guilty Of Manslaughter In Wife's Strangulation, Burying Body In Basement

    Opposition Parties Try To Block Trudeau's Pick For Languages Commissioner

    Opposition Parties Try To Block Trudeau's Pick For Languages Commissioner
    Conservatives and New Democrats accuse Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of picking Meilleur for the job without consulting them.

    Opposition Parties Try To Block Trudeau's Pick For Languages Commissioner

    Liberals Want Infrastructure Cash To Reduce Impacts Of Flooding, Amarjeet Sohi Says

    Liberals Want Infrastructure Cash To Reduce Impacts Of Flooding, Amarjeet Sohi Says
    OTTAWA — The federal infrastructure minister says the Liberals want more of the billions in upcoming project funding to be spent directly on flood and disaster mitigation.

    Liberals Want Infrastructure Cash To Reduce Impacts Of Flooding, Amarjeet Sohi Says

    Editor Of CBC's 'The National' Reassigned After Cultural Appropriation Flap

    Editor Of CBC's 'The National' Reassigned After Cultural Appropriation Flap
    TORONTO — The managing editor of CBC's "The National" was reassigned Wednesday for what the public broadcaster called "an inappropriate, insensitive and frankly unacceptable tweet" he made as part of a controversial debate over cultural appropriation.

    Editor Of CBC's 'The National' Reassigned After Cultural Appropriation Flap

    Transgender Community, NDP Urge Trudeau Government To Change Travel Regulations

    Transgender Community, NDP Urge Trudeau Government To Change Travel Regulations
    Doing away with the regulation is a cause the federal NDP has been pushing for five years, and one for which Justin Trudeau expressed support before becoming prime minister.

    Transgender Community, NDP Urge Trudeau Government To Change Travel Regulations