The man who pleaded guilty to first degree murder in the death of Loretta Saunders confessed to the killing in journal entries he wrote while in jail, CTV News has learned.
CTV Atlantic’s Kelland Sundahl obtained a copy of Blake Leggette’s notes, which were seized by jail guards and would likely have been used against him in court.
In neatly written entries riddled with grammatical and spelling errors, Leggette described how he attacked and killed Saunders last February in Halifax.
“You’d almost think I was famous,” he wrote in his first journal entry, dated Feb. 28, 2014, after making a court appearance. “I’m not proud at all. On the inside, I am sad and remorseful.”
Leggette and Victoria Henneberry, who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, had been subletting a room in Saunders’ apartment. But they were strapped for cash and had no money for rent.
When Saunders, who had moved in with her boyfriend, arrived at the apartment to collect the rent on Feb. 13, 2014, Leggette decided to kill her, according to his journal.
Leggette wrote that Saunders, a 26-year-old student at Saint Mary’s University, was “getting annoyed” and asking whether the rent money was available. As Saunders sat on the couch, Leggette said he went into the room he shared with Henneberry and asked, “Should I do it?”
Henneberry told him he didn’t “have the balls,” which made him angry, Leggette wrote. He walked over to the couch, grabbed Saunders by the throat and began choking her. He wrote that he tried to suffocate her with plastic bags, but Saunders tore through them.
He then hit Saunders’ head on the floor twice and she stopped moving.
Henneberry remained in the apartment during the struggle and the pair then drove to Salisbury, N.B., where they dumped Saunders’ body.
Many of the same details were in the agreed statements of fact presented to the court when Leggette and Henneberry entered their surprise guilty pleas last week.
“I'm angry at myself for killing Loretta, and the fact I'm going to be blaming Victoria for it, so I don't do life in prison,” Leggette wrote in one journal entry.
He also blamed Henneberry for the couple’s money problems, writing that “all she wanted to do was spend money.”
Leggette wrote that he loved Henneberry even though they fought all the time. In one entry he wrote, “Never thought I’d kill for her.”
Leggette’s journal was confiscated by jail guards during a search of his cell, a few weeks after he started writing.
Saunders, an Inuit woman, was writing her thesis on Canada’s missing and murdered aboriginal women at the time of her death. Her family expressed relief after the guilty pleas were entered.
Leggette will be sentenced on Wednesday. He faces an automatic life sentence, with no possibility of parole for 25 years.
With a report by CTV Atlantic’s Kelland Sundahl
