Jury finds Beckett guilty of killing wife

Murder victim’s father says family hopes to be able to forgive killer or ‘we’ll live in misery the rest of our life’

Peter Beckett is guilty of killing his wife during a summer 2010 camping trip, a Kelowna jury decided Saturday afternoon.

Beckett was charged with first-degree murder in the death of his wife, Laura Letts-Beckett, who drowned in Upper Arrow Lake while the two of them were out on a small boat.

Beckett is a former city councillor in Napier, New Zealand, while Letts-Beckett was working as a teacher at Dapp Elementary School in Alberta at the time of her death. The couple lived in the nearby town of Westlock, Alta. The trial lasted just over three weeks, and the jury began deliberating Tuesday afternoon.

The unanimous guilty verdict was announced in court at 5 p.m. Saturday.

Beckett was tried on the same charge last year in Kamloops, but a mistrial was declared after the jury could not come to a unanimous decision after seven days of deliberations.

That trial lasted several months, and many more witnesses were called, including Beckett himself, who did not testify at the Kelowna trial.

Letts-Beckett’s family was at the courthouse in Kelowna for Saturday’s decision.

Her father, Park Letts, expressed thanks for the outcome and described his daughter as a “gem of a gal.”

“It does give us closure,” he said. “We’re going to meet our daughter again, and that’s a great hope we have.”

Throughout the trial, it was revealed Beckett and his wife separated in 2007 because of Beckett’s treatment of his wife’s parents.

After the couple reunited, Letts-Beckett was estranged from her parents.

“She met an individual who I guess was charming, not to me particularly, but obviously to her . . . she thought they could have a happy life together,” said Letts.

Outside the courthouse, Letts had one message for the man found guilty of killing his daughter.

“I would say I’m very sorry that he had such a wonderful gal that supported him and he couldn’t enjoy that because it seemed like his only motive was dollars,” he said. “I guess I wonder if he really loved the girl or loved what she had.”

The Crown argued the murder was a plot to cash in Letts-Beckett’s life insurance policy and to get at her inheritance.

Letts said his family is working toward forgiving Beckett.

“We have to forgive,” he said. “If we can’t forgive, we’ll live in misery the rest of our life. It’s not easy, but we have to do it.”

Beckett was sentenced to the mandatory life sentence in jail with no chance of parole for 25 years.