Editor’s note: This story contains graphic details which may disturb some readers. Discretion is advised.
NANAIMO — A woman has been found guilty of the reduced charge of second degree murder and for interfering with the remains of her former boyfriend.
The sentence carries an automatic life sentence with parole eligibility of between 10 and 25 years.
Paris Jayanne Laroche, 28, was on trial earlier this year, originally charged with first degree murder for the death of Sidney Joseph Mantee. She also pleaded not guilty to interfering with a dead body.
On Friday, July 19 by veteran BC Supreme Court Justice Robin Baird in Vancouver, said he wasn’t convinced Laroche intended to kill Mantee until she woke up at about 4 a.m. on March 5, 2020 — thus in justice Baird’s opinion, the premeditation factor required for a first degree conviction was not met.
“It was a matter instead of revenge,” Baird said, adding the evidence showed the brutal killing was not an act of self-defence, noting Mantee was asleep and not a threat at the time.
While Laroche will be handed an automatic life in prison sentence, it will be up to the judge to decide parole eligibility between 10 and 25 years.
Mantee, 32, was killed by Laroche at the Nanaimo apartment unit the pair shared, a contention her defence team acknowledged as true during the trial.
Justice Baird stated the evidence showed Laroche was on the receiving end of emotional and physical abuse.
He said Laroche was of the belief there would be a deady confrontation between Mantee and Laroche one day.
“I find as a fact that Ms. Laroche turned in for the night, she set her alarm for an early hour the next morning because she had to go to work. Her plan for the day was to process fish, not kill Sidney Mantee,” justice Baird said during the tail-end of his hour-long ruling.
He swiftly discounted a self-defence argument, pointing to the defenceless position Mantee was in when he was hit on the back of the head three times with a hammer.
Laroche then slit Mantee’s throat.
No use of force was imminent at the time, justice Baird noted.
“Ms. Laroche knew that he had no present capacity to harm or threaten her as she stood over him with her hammer. She acted unilaterally. It was entirely a one-sided transaction. Mr. Mantee was unarmed and defenceless. The level of violence that Ms. Laroche used was extreme and catastrophic.”
Lead defence attorney Glen Orris also didn’t dispute undercover police evidence and confessions made by Laroche to multiple people that after she killed Mantee she cut up his remains into many pieces and disposed of him around Nanaimo, including at public parks over the course of many months.
Orris argued her client’s actions were unplanned acts of self-defence.
Laroche and Mantee pictured together (Facebook)The trial heard testimony from a close friend of Laroche, Robyn Bartle, who said Laroche confessed to the killing a little over 13 months later, indicating she’d beaten Mantee with a hammer.
Bartle, aware Mantee was previously a reported missing person, was under the impression he had moved to Victoria after the pair had split up.
She testified Mantee abused Laroche and animals and threatened her friend’s beloved cats and family.
The following day Bartle filed a report with Nanaimo RCMP, triggering an undercover police operation several days later at her apartment unit.
Sidney Mantee was the focus of a missing person’s investigation several months after he was killed. (NanaimoNewsNOW/Nanaimo RCMP)Laroche then confessed to a pair of undercover police officers within several minutes after meeting her at her apartment unit.
She said Mantee was sleeping face-down on a living room mattress when she hit him multiple times in the back of the head with a small graphite sledgehammer, slit his throat, then dragged him to the bathtub.
Laroche gutted Mantee in the tub, cut up his remains and placed them in her fridge and freezer and told police she disposed of the body parts around Nanaimo.
“I broke him down piece-by-piece in the bathtub like an animal,” Laroche told the undercover officers.
Confirmed bone fragments were found at Neck Point Park and Pipers Lagoon Park.
She also relinquished the sledgehammer she used to bludgeon Mantee, as well as tools and other items associated with dismembering his remains.
Defence lawyer Orris Orris told the trial mistreatment by Mantee of one of Laroche’s cats the night before the killing put his client over the edge.
“She undertook the acts in order to defend herself…having been trapped in the situation she was in and feeling that way, she had no alternative.”
Notably, Crown prosecutor Nick Barber stated while Laroche suspected her cat had been abused by Mantee, she couldn’t confirm it as fact before she slaughtered Mantee.
Barber argued Laroche’s actions were clearly pre-meditated and unreasonable.
“If she had been afraid or felt that she needed to act in self-defence there were so many options. She could have gone to work, gone to the authorities, or gone to friends or just done nothing because Mr. Mantee was asleep,” Barber argued at trial.
Barber referenced post-offence conduct by Laroche, including using the same knives she used to cut up Mantee to prepare meals.
Laroche, who didn’t testify in her own defence, was arrested second time with charges officially laid in March 2022.
She’s been in custody ever since.
A sentencing hearing will proceed at a yet to be determined date to define Laroche’s parole eligibility.
Laroche unsuccessfully applied to be released on pre-trial bail last summer.
A lookout pier on Newcastle Ave. near Laroche’s home is one of multiple locations she reported disposing of Mantee’s remains. (Alex Rawnsley/NanaimoNewsNOW)
Paris Laroche had no prior criminal record. (Submitted photo)Join the conversation. Submit your letter to NanaimoNewsNOW and be included on The Water Cooler, our letters to the editor feature.
ian.holmes@pattisonmedia.com
On Twitter: @reporterholmes
