Former Riverdale and Diary of a Wimpy Kid actor Ryan Grantham was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 14 years for the 2020 murder of his mother.
The statutory sentence for second-degree murder was handed down in Vancouver on September 21 by British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Kathleen Ker. With the verdict on provincial Canada’s laws already a foregone conclusion, the only real joker was how long guilty-pleating Grantham would have to wait before the now 24-year-old could apply for parole.
Leo Awards nominee Grantham surrendered to police shortly after he shot his 64-year-old mother, Barbara Waite, in the back of the head on March 31, 2020 at the family home in Squamish, north of Vancouver.
A second-degree murder charge in BC comes with no eligibility for parole between 10 and 25 years. In connection with this, prosecutors recommended that Grantham be given a suspended sentence of up to 18 years in a sentencing hearing earlier this year. The former actor’s legal team had suggested 12 years as a fair sentence. Apparently Justice Ker met her in the middle of her sentence this week.
Originally charged with first-degree murder, Grantham has been in custody for two and a half years, Vancouver police officials confirmed today to Deadline. Grantham, who has been on a mental health program since his arrest, is preparing to be transferred to a more permanent facility, sources said.
With around 30 credits on his resume, Grantham notably played Jeffrey Augustine on the fourth season of the CW soap Riverdale in 2019. While the character made only a brief appearance, he played a central role in the Archie comics-based show. It was Jeffrey Augustine who killed the late Luke Perry, who portrayed Fred Andrews on the series, in a hit and run that changed almost everything on the show. Grantham began his career in 2007 and also appeared in the 2010 film Diary of a Wimpy Kid, as well as Supernatural, iZombie, and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.
It was later revealed in court that after the murder of his mother, 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 set off. With ever-changing intentions, he eventually intended to attempt to kill Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as he wrote in a diary entered into evidence. Grantham also considered committing a mass shooting at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver or on the iconic Lions Gate Bridge.
Luckily, none of that happened and Grantham instead went to the Cop Shop in East Vancouver and surrendered. “I killed my mother,” he said bluntly to the police at the station’s reception desk.
Back in March of this year, the multiple credit performer expressed his sadness over what he had done. “In the face of something so horrible, it seems so pointless to apologize,” Grantham told the Vancouver court and Judge Ker, reading from a piece of paper. “But I’m sorry from every fiber of my being.”