WINNIPEG - A Manitoba couple sentenced to life in prison for killing a five-year-old girl will have to wait to find out whether their first-degree murder convictions will be reduced.
The province's Court of Appeal reserved decision Wednesday in the horrific murder of young Phoenix Sinclair.
Phoenix's mother and stepfather, Samantha Kematch and Karl McKay, were convicted last year and given an automatic sentence of life behind bars with no parole for at least 25 years. Their trial heard that the couple regularly beat, choked, punched and kicked the girl, and occasionally shot her with a BB gun. Phoenix died after a final assault in June 2005.
For the people who knew the little girl as a healthy and happy child before her death, the ongoing court proceedings have taken a toll.
"It's been really hard on our family. People don't understand what this family has been through with going to court and coming back to court and all that," Angie Sinclair, one of the young girl's paternal aunts, said outside court.
A jury convicted Kematch and McKay after hearing the girl had been confined to the basement of the family home before the killing. Under the Criminal Code, a slaying committed while forcibly restraining someone elevates the crime to first-degree murder rather than second-degree murder or manslaughter.
Their lawyers argue that Phoenix, who was often ordered to stay in the basement, was not physically confined because there was no locked door keeping her there.
"Phoenix did come up from the basement frequently," Mike Cook, McKay's lawyer, said Wednesday. "It wasn't a case where she was held captive in that basement."
Cook said earlier in the week that Phoenix may have preferred staying in the unheated, concrete basement because it was better than the abuse she suffered upstairs. The remarks caused one judge to say he had a "great deal of difficulty" believing the girl was not coerced into staying downstairs.
If the judges reduce the convictions, Kematch and McKay could be released from prison earlier. While a first-degree-murder conviction means someone must stay behind bars for at least 25 years, second-degree murder carries a life sentence with no parole for at least 10 years. Manslaughter has no minimum sentence unless a firearm is used.
Phoenix's death led to a review of Manitoba's child welfare system. She had been in foster care for much of her life but was returned to Kematch about a year before her death. After the killing, Kematch and McKay wrapped the girl's body in plastic and buried it in a shallow grave. They continued collecting welfare payments, listing her as a dependent.
The death was only discovered nine months later, after a family member tipped off police. When confronted by child welfare workers, Kematch tried to pass off another girl as Phoenix and was arrested.
