Housemate gets life sentence for murder

A 73-year-old Newcastle woman who killed her housemate and dumped her body has been sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for at least 12 years for a murder that an Oshawa judge said, “deeply offend common standards of decency.”

Barbara Kennedy looked on from the prisoner’s box in an Oshawa court Tuesday as Superior Court Justice Michelle Fuerst sentenced her for the murder of Terri Johnson, her housemate and former intimate partner. Kennedy had pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in January for strangling 52-year-old Johnson, a woman described by friends as an “amazing humanitarian.”

The court heard that Johnson was killed on Feb. 17, 2022, over an “ongoing dispute” over the ownership of the Newcastle house the two women were sharing.

Though crediting Kennedy for being a productive contributor to society, having no prior criminal record and pleading guilty, Fuerst denied the request from defence counsel for Kennedy to receive the minimum parole eligibility period of 10 years. Fuerst cited a string of significant aggravating features, such as Johnson being killed in her home and her being a vulnerable person because of the paralysis to her left side, and a murder that involved the “inhumane disposal of her body.”

“Ms. Kennedy displayed the ultimate disrespect for Ms. Johnson,” said Fuerst, adding that it was also aggravating that Kennedy lied to police and took steps to clean up the crime scene and conceal evidence of the killing.

Kennedy has no guarantee of parole upon her first eligibility date, nor ever.

In a series of deliberate steps that “deeply offend common standards of decency,” Kennedy placed Johnson in a rubber container, loaded it into her vehicle and left it sitting there overnight before driving to a wooded area in north Pickering, where she dumped Johnson, Fuerst said.

Kennedy’s comments to investigators following Johnson’s death were far from remorseful and “demonstrated a callous lack of appreciation of the seriousness of her crimes,” the judge said.

Friends attested to the women having a “toxic relationship.”

Police were alerted to Johnson’s death on Feb. 20, 2022, when one of Kennedy’s friends reported that she had confessed to “strangling her roommate to death with a bungee cord.”

Kennedy admitted to wrapping a bungee cord around her neck because “I had to get rid of her.”