Daycare worker convicted of toddler’s murder appeals verdict, seeks new trial

Tomy Carranza-Ladry, sentenced to life in prison for the second-degree murder of an 18-month-old child, is appealing his conviction, arguing the trial judge made legal errors and seeking a new trial.

Warning: This story contains details of violence against a child.

Tomy Carranza-Ladry, the former daycare worker recently sentenced to life in prison for the second-degree murder of an 18-month-old child, is appealing the verdict.

The appeal filed on behalf of Carranza-Ladry by his defence lawyers, Clara Daviault and Élizabeth Ménard, claims that the judge, Superior Court Justice Marc-André Blanchard, made errors of law and is requesting a new trial.

Carranza-Ladry was found guilty in February at the Joliette courthouse. Blanchard, who called the killing an “abomination,” handed down a 14-year period of parole ineligibility.

In their appeal notice, the defence argues Justice Blanchard erred by failing to give the jury a “clear and limiting instruction” on how to interpret an analogy involving a car accident used by a pathologist, specifically regarding the assessment of the force applied.

Additionally, they claim the judge erred by concluding that a stay of proceedings was not justified following the “irregular and inadvertent” introduction of bad character evidence during the testimony of a psychiatric expert called by the defence.

During the trial, the court heard that on Dec. 4, 2023, Carranza-Ladry lost control during a panic attack at a daycare in L’Assomption, which caused him to hit something he described as a hard object.

“He ends up on the floor and, when he regains his senses, he sees that the child is lying on the floor, face down, arms outstretched at shoulder level,” according to the decision.

He testified that he then realized the true nature of the hard object in question — it was the victim.

Blanchard said that, given the verdict, the jury did not believe Carranza-Ladry’s version of events.