favours. When it was done, she re-enacted the killing with the boyfriend. Later, she protested to police that she and the boyfriend had talked of mundane things, in addition to the killing, as if that made her less of a killer.
None of this takes the onus off the boy who allegedly stabbed Ms. Rengel six times on New Year’s Day, 2008, leaving her to bleed to death in agony, with only a kind passerby to comfort her. But it does mean that M.T., who was nearly 16, is a serious threat to public safety.
Will that threat be diminished by the time six years is past, the maximum term in custody (followed by four years supervised in the community), if she is sentenced as a youth? Will she be safe to release? It’s impossible to predict at this point. No presentencing hearing has been held, and so it is not publicly known what sort of home life she has had, and what mental difficulties she might have experienced. But it is hard to see how her personal background would help the court predict the danger she poses. In these circumstances, the community’s protection should be paramount.
With a life penalty, M.T. would have to demonstrate to a parole board that she is an acceptable risk for release. Perhaps in five to seven years — let’s hope it’s at least six — she will not be ready. But perhaps in 10 or 12 she will be. Perhaps, too, she needs the threat of life behind bars to force her to deal with whatever made her wish to kill in cold blood. Who is helped by treating her as a youth? Not her. Not society.
A life penalty has three other benefits: She will have to report to parole authorities for life, rather than be unsupervised after 10 years; the crime will not be erased from her record (if she ever winds up in adult court again) if she is crime-free for five years after a youth sentence would end; and finally, the penalty will be commensurate with the terrible crime she committed. To steal a young teenage girl’s life from her for no other reason than some twisted self-gratification is monstrous, and requires a strong response that demonstrates the value this society puts on life (“Cold Blood and Adult Penalties” 2009).
The Judge’s Decision
On July 28, 2009, after a three-week jury trial and a one-week sentencing hearing in which two psychiatrists testified about their examinations of her, M.T. was sentenced by Justice Ian Nordheimer as an adult for manipulating her boyfriend into killing Stefanie Rengel. She lost her anonymity and was identified as Melissa Tordorovic.
Psychiatrists indicated that Todorovic’s personality would not be fully developed until she was in her mid-twenties. Until then, they were reluctant to make a diagnosis. And, absent a diagnosis, let alone treatment, her future dangerousness was unknowable and unpredictable. The judge said that the sum of psychiatric evidence was that there was “some risk of a repetition of this conduct. While the precise degree of risk is unknown, the nature and extent of Melissa’s role in this incident is cause for concern.”
Justice Nordheimer said that “the puppet master is more culpable than the puppet.”
The Sentencing of D.B.
On September 17, 2009, Stefanie Rengel’s actual killer was sentenced. The youth had pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in April 2009.
D.B. was four days short of his eighteenth birthday when he stabbed Rengel on January 1, 2008. The timing was crucial. An adult committing the same crime would receive an automatic life sentence with no parole for twenty-five years. “He bought himself 15 years right off the top,” noted crown attorney Robin Flumerfelt, who emphasized the planning that had gone into the murder. “This had been planned and deliberated for months,” said Flumerfelt. “It was not an impulsive act. It was a calculated scheme.”
Stefanie Rengel’s thirteen-year-old brother, Ian, made a victim impact statement at the hearing. He said, “Being four days shy of eighteen shouldn’t mean automatically knocking fifteen years off the sentence for first-degree murder. My sister Stefanie didn’t even get to live fifteen years.”
Judge Ian Nordheimer sentenced D.B. as an adult. He has now been identified as David Bagshaw, and his photograph has been released (Blatchford 2009c; 2009d; 2009f; “Cold Blood and Adult Penalties” 2009; “Evil Must Be Taken Into Account” 2009; Small 2009; “Teen Guilty of 1st-Degree Murder in Death of Stefanie Rengel, 14” 2009).
References and Further Reading
* Cited by the Supreme Court of Canada.
Alphonso, Caroline. 2008. “Youth Violence Tied to Racism, Report Says.” Globe and Mail, November 14.
Anand, Sanjeev S. 1999. “Catalyst for Change: The History of Canadian Juvenile Justice Reform.” 24 Queen’s Law Journal 515.*
Appleby, Timothy. 2008a. “Youth Homicides Up 3 Per Cent in 2006.” Globe and Mail, May 17.
_____. 2008b. “Report Seeks $100-million for Youth Programs.” Globe and Mail, November 14.
_____. 2009a. “Police Presence in High Schools Makes the Grade.” Globe and Mail, February 5.
_____. 2009b. “Sentenced to Life, Gunman in Creba Slaying Unmasked.” Globe and Mail, April 25.
Bala, Nicholas. 1990. “Dealing with Violent Young Offenders: Transfer to Adult Court and Bill C-58.” 9 Canadian Journal of Family Law 11.*
_____. 1994. “The 1995 Young Offenders Act Amendments: Compromise or Confusion?” 26 Ottawa Law Review 643.
_____. 1997. Young Offenders Law. Concord, ON: Irwin Law.*
_____. 2003. Youth Criminal Justice Law. Toronto: Irwin Law.*
Bala, Nicholas, and Mary-Anne Kirvan. 2000. “The Statute: Its Principles and Provisions and Their Interpretation by the Courts.” In Juvenile Crime and Delinquency: A Turn of the Century Reader, edited by Ruth M. Mann, 45. Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press.*
Blatchford, Christie. 2008. “Creba Jury Delivers Stunning Guilty Verdict.” Globe and Mail, December 8.
_____. 2009a. “How to Sentence Evil: As a Youth, or an Adult?” Globe and Mail, January 29.
_____. 2009b. “iPod Killer Gets Adult Sentence for Murder on Ottawa City Bus.” Globe and Mail, February 13.
_____. 2009c. “No Remorse, No Mercy for Teenage ‘Puppet Master’.” Globe and Mail, July 29.
_____. 2009d. “Rengel Killer Gets Life for ‘Truly Evil’ Crime.” Globe and Mail, September 28.
_____. 2009e. “A System Focused Too Heavily on the Rights of the Violent.” Globe and Mail, January 30.
_____. 2009f. “Yes, These are Teenagers, But Murder Isn’t a Phase.” Globe and Mail, July 27.
“Cold Blood and Adult Penalties.” 2009. Globe and Mail, March 24.
“Crown Seeks Adult Penalty in Creba Case.” 2008. Globe and Mail, December 11.
Department of Justice. A Strategy for the Renewal of Youth Justice. Ottawa, 1998.*
DiManno, Rosie. 2009. “Creba Killer Gets Life — and a Name.” Toronto Star, April 25.
Doob, Anthony, and Carla Cesaroni. 2004. Responding to Youth Crime in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.*
Doob, Anthony N., and Michael Tonry. 2004. “Varieties of Youth Justice.” In Youth Crime and Youth Justice:
