Movies

Riverdale actor Ryan Grantham sentenced to life for murdering his mother in 2020 – Deadline

September 23, 2022

Ancient Riverdale and Diary of a Wimpy Kid Actor Ryan Grantham was sentenced to life behind bars without the possibility of parole for 14 years for the 2020 murder of his mother.

On September 21 in Vancouver, British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Kathleen Ker handed down the sentence of second-degree murder according to the rules of the art. With the sentence already a lost conclusion under the laws of the Canadian province, the only real wild card was how long guilty plead Grantham would have to wait before the current 24-year-old could apply for parole.

Grantham, a Leo Award nominee, turned into a police officer shortly after shooting his 64-year-old mother, Barbara Waite, in the back of the head on March 31, 2020, at the family home in Squamish, just outside north of Vancouver.

A second-degree murder charge in British Columbia carries no eligibility for parole from 10 to 25 years. Against this backdrop, prosecutors had recommended at a sentencing hearing earlier this year that Grantham be given a parole ineligibility until age 18. The former actor’s legal team had suggested 12 years as a fair consequence. Clearly, Judge Ker met them in the middle in her ruling this week.

Originally charged with first degree murder, Grantham has been in custody for two and a half years, Vancouver law enforcement officials confirmed to Deadline today. Participating in a mental health program since his arrest, Grantham is being prepared for transfer to a more permanent facility, sources say.

With around 30 credits on his resume, Grantham obviously played Jeffrey Augustine on the CW soapy’s fourth season. Riverdale in 2019. While briefly appearing, the character played a pivotal role in the show based on the Archie comic. It was Jeffrey Augustine who killed the late Luke Perry portrayed Fred Andrews on the show in a hit-and-run that changed almost everything on the show. Beginning his career in 2007, Grantham also appeared in the 2010 film Diary of a Wimpy Kid, as well as stays on Supernatural, iZombie and in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.

It was later revealed in court that after his mother was murdered, Grantham took video of the body and confessed to the murder on camera. A day later, after carefully arranging the body in a semi-religious scene, Grantham hit the road. With ever-changing intentions, he would at one point try to kill Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as he also wrote in a diary presented as evidence. Grantham also considered carrying out a mass shooting at Vancouver’s Simon Fraser University or the iconic Lions Gate Bridge.

Luckily, none of that happened and Grantham instead went to the police store in East Vancouver and surrendered. “I killed my mother,” he would have bluntly declared to the police at the reception of the police station.

In March this year, the multi-credited actor expressed his sadness at what he had done. “In the face of something so awful, apologizing seems so pointless,” Grantham told the Vancouver court and Judge Ker, reading from a sheet of paper. “But with every fiber of my being, I’m sorry.”