Three life sentences in Lane murder trial
Judge calls killing ‘the most callous and cold-hearted act imaginable’
Time was the central theme in the plot which led to the murder of Calgarian Ryan Lane, a prosecutor said Friday, adding his killers will serve a lot of it in their life sentences.
“There is a thread which has woven through this crime, it is time,” Crown prosecutor Shane Parker said.
“Ryan Lane was murdered, because he wanted time with ( his daughter),” Parker said. “Four minutes. “Sheena Cuthill took that time to give permission and in that time had to decide life or death.”
Cuthill, who was convicted Wednesday of first-degree murder, had her husband Timothy Rempel and brother-in-law Wilhelm Rempel murder Lane to resolve a custody dispute over their then-fouryear-old daughter.
The brothers kidnapped Lane Feb. 7, 2012, before murdering him and cremating his remains in a burn barrel.
Parker’s reference to the four minutes was regarding texts exchanged between Cuthill and her husband in the early morning hours of the previous day.
In the exchange, Rempel asked for the OK and four minutes later, Cuthill replied “OK.”
That four-minute consideration created “the time to prepare a plan to lure and then commit the act of murder, time to create burn barrels and cremate a human being in the middle of the nighttime,” Parker said.
Justice Alan Macleod also heard victim impact statements from a number of the dead man’s relatives.
“My experience was grief beyond explanation,” the victim’s sister, Meagan Lane, said.
“I screamed, I collapsed, I wept, I begged the universe to wake me up from this nightmare,” she told a courtroom packed with observers, many of whom clapped when she was done.
“If Ryan was in this room with us all now, I would ask him, ‘ Would you die for the safety and well-being of your daughter?’ ” she said.
“He would undoubtedly and loudly insist that, yes, he would.
“And so, in Ryan’s death he has exposed these three people, thus removing them from the life of an innocent young girl who deserves her father, and for that, her father is a hero.”
After submissions by lawyers for the three offenders, Cuthill offered a brief apology to the victim’s family.
“I’m truly sorry for the loss of Ryan,” she said.
And Tim’s lawyer, Allan Fay, offered an apology from his client as well.
“Mr. Rempel asked me to express to the Ryan Lane family … his deepest sympathies,” Fay said.
Before passing automatic life sentences for all three convicted killers, Macleod commented on their crimes.
“Ryan Lane was murdered because he wanted to get to know his daughter,” he said.
“His killing was the most callous and cold-hearted act imaginable.”
All three will not be eligible for parole for 25 years.