Man who strangled girlfriend sentenced to 11 years in prison
Killing his girlfriend and then claiming she had killed herself was both cruel and cowardly, a Calgary judge said Tuesday, in sentencing Luke Anthony MacLeod to 11 years in prison.
Justice Keith Yamauchi agreed with Crown prosecutor Shane Parker that a double-digit sentence was warranted.
“This was not just a fleeting act of violence. It took him at least two minutes to squeeze the life out of her,” Yamauchi said.
MacLeod repeatedly bashed the head of Sheri Carpen into the tiled concrete floor of their basement suite before strangling her with his hands.
He then waited before calling 911 and claiming she had hanged herself from their fridge.
“One of the more troubling aspects of this case is the fact that Mr. MacLeod concocted the cruel story that Ms. Carpen has taken her own life, and he stuck to that story until the autopsy proved otherwise,” Yamauchi said.
“This was a senseless crime that had a profound effect on Ms. Carpen’s friends and family,” the judge said, addressing MacLeod directly.
“Your conscious act of concocting the story that Ms. Carpen had taken her own life was cruel, cowardly and socially abhorrent.”
MacLeod, 34, pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter in the March 28, 2015, death of Carpen, 31, inside their Pineridge Bay N.E. home.
He had been charged with second-degree murder.
According to a statement of agreed facts made an exhibit, the couple had engaged in a cocaine and alcohol-fuelled fight in the hours before Carpen was killed.
The victim had been both manually choked and suffered bluntforce trauma wounds to her head, either of which caused her death.
“The defendant caused the death of Sheri Carpen,” the agreed facts, filed by Parker, stated. “There was a final fatal struggle in the basement suite after assaults earlier in the night involving both the defendant and the victim,” it said.
“The defendant punched Ms. Carpen in the face and head, and he hit her head off of the tile floor.
“The defendant applied significant force compressing her neck.”
At 6:29 a.m. on March 28, MacLeod called 911, claiming Carpen had committed suicide.
Parker said the suicide ruse was only disproven once an autopsy was completed nearly a year later.
Until then, Carpen’s family was under the misapprehension she had taken her own life, which Parker said was an aggravating factor in the case.
He also said the domestic nature of the violence justified a harsher sentence.
“Your choice of a partner should never be a decision to die over,” he told Yamauchi.
No one from Carpen’s family was present in court.
Parker explained the entire process has been an emotional strain on them.