Two B.C. teenage boys who admitted to first-degree murder in the horrific death of Kimberly Proctor were sentenced as adults for their crimes Monday.
The boys' identities had been protected by a publication ban under stipulations in the Youth Criminal Justice Act. However, B.C. Supreme Court Judge Robert Johnston lifted the ban Monday.
Cameron Alexander Moffatt, 18, and Kruse Hendrick Wellwood, 17, were sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 10 years.
In handing down his sentence, Johnston said the boys should remain jailed for as long as possible due to the brutal nature of their crime, and the fact that they may never be rehabilitated.
In court, Johnston said both teens should be held responsible for the crime despite implicating each other following their arrests in June.
"Each of these young men has tended to minimize his participation," Johnston said. "It's not really possible to sort out the truth here. It is not safe to make any firm findings on the available evidence here."
But he said he found "each was a full and willing participant."
Last October, the boys pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and indignity to human remains after admitting to luring Proctor to a Victoria-area home and then sexually assaulting and killing her. The boys, then 16 and 17 years of age, then mutilated her body with a knife.
When the boys pleaded guilty last fall, Crown prosecutor Peter Juk read a five-page agreed statement of facts into the court record, which showed how the boys discussed, via text messages and online chats, how they would lure, rape and then kill Proctor.
After Proctor died, the boys stored her body in a freezer in the home's garage overnight. The next morning, the boys packed it into a duffle bag, boarded a bus and dumped it near the Galloping Goose trail in Colwood. Before leaving they set Proctor's body on fire.
Proctor's body was discovered later that day -- May 19, 2010 -- but it took three days to identify her remains. An autopsy showed the girl died of asphyxiation from duct tape that was placed over her mouth.
According to the agreed statement of facts, Proctor knew the boys through school and had communicated with both extensively via text and online. Proctor had previously rebuffed both boys' romantic overtures.
The day before her murder, Proctor agreed to meet the boys under the pretence they wanted to explain why they had recently been mean to her.
When they arrived at the 16-year-old's house, the boys bound Proctor's ankles and wrists, stuck a sock into her mouth and sexually assaulted her for hours.
Johnston told the court Monday that words could not adequately describe the inhumane way the boys treated Proctor and the suffering she endured.
The girl's parents, Fred and Lucia Proctor, were in court Monday and issued statements to reporters when the proceedings were over.
"I don't even like to call them animals because Kim was just such an animal lover," said Lucia Proctor. "To me, they're just monsters."
Fred Proctor said it is his hope that the boys do not get released from prison.
"These guys, these animals, aren't (able to be) rehabilitated," he said. "They deserve to die a long, slow, horrific, painful death."
Later Monday, details emerged that Wellwood's own father once killed a teenage girl.
In 2001, Wellwood was seven years old when his father, Robert Dezwaan, murdered 16-year-old Cherish Oppenheim.
After a 17-hour police interrogation, Dezwaan led investigators to the girl's body, which he had partially buried in a remote area near Merritt, B.C.
Dezwaan picked up Oppenheim at a gas station, the two had sex, and then he hit her on the head with a rock before strangling her from behind.
Dezwaan is still serving prison time for Oppenheim's murder.
Forensic psychologist Steven Hart of Simon Fraser University said his father's crime would have had an impact on Wellwood. However, even before his father's arrest, Wellwood exhibited violent behaviour such as setting fires and striking his mother.
"What's very clear from some of the research that's been done is there is a behavioural genetic contribution to crime or violent crime," Hart told CTV News."
"That we can see there is a family history of crime and violence, even when people are adopted away and raised by different parents."
Although they were sentenced as adults, Wellwood and Moffatt are eligible for parole after 10 years under provisions in the Youth Criminal Justice Act. However, a spokesperson for B.C.'s Criminal Justice Branch told The Canadian Press that there is no guarantee they will be granted parole and may very well remain jailed for life.
