Mother tells daughter’s killer to burn in hell, asks judge to show no mercy

REGINA — The mother of a 16-year-old girl who was brutally stabbed to death by a spurned ex stared the young man down in court on Friday, telling him to “burn in hell.”

“Show him no mercy,” Janet Leflar told the judge presiding over the sentencing hearing of the 19-year-old, who pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the death of Leflar’s only child, Hannah.

“I will never know my daughter as an adult. I’ve lost my entire future because of this, a future that revolved around my daughter’s plans. My future is now a blank wall.”

Sobs were heard throughout court as Leflar said that in addition to killing Hannah, he had “murdered my future grandchildren.”

Justice Jennifer Pritchard will ultimately determine whether the young man, who was 16 at the time of the crime, will be sentenced as a youth or an adult.

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On Friday, relatives and friends described the loss they have felt since the girl was killed.

Hannah’s father, Jeff Leflar, wept as his wife, Lore, read a prepared statement.

“Our pain is so raw, so real, we don’t think we can go on,” she said, clutching onto a tissue. “We pray we are reunited, only then our pain will end.”

Lore said Hannah was an honours student who just before her death had been named the top of her class for Grade 10: “She never collected her award.”

Throughout the statements, the young man stared straight ahead.

The sentencing hearing has been told that after their break-up, the youth had trouble coping with being dumped. When she started dating a different boy, he hatched a plan called “Project Zombify” to recruit friends to help him attack the couple with bats and knives.

That attack never took place because Leflar and that boyfriend broke up, but the youth kept tabs on her by creating a dummy Facebook account to monitor her posts.

When he saw she had a new boyfriend, the youth hid outside her house and waited for her to walk home from school, then followed her inside and stabbed her to death with a hunting knife.

Her body was found by her stepfather, Wade Anderson.

“I am sick to my stomach to learn of the details of how she died, you cannot unread or unsee that,” Sharon Leflar, Hannah’s aunt, told court.

Janet Leflar she now suffers from depression and had to quit a career she spent 12 years building.

“I am bitter and angry,” she said, adding she has to take medication every day in order to get to sleep.

Closing arguments will be held Tuesday.

(CJME)

CJME, The Canadian Press