Killer’s parole ineligibility set at 13 years
Angela April Walsh, 24, of Fredericton, stabbed Clark Ernest Hunter Greene repeatedly in chest, face in spring of 2020 as he lay unconscious in public park
Warning: This story contains graphic descriptions of a violent crime.
A judge ruled Friday that a Fredericton woman who stabbed an unconscious man in the chest and face, gouging out his eyes, must serve 13 years before she can even apply for parole.
Angela April Walsh, 24, AKA Ali Morningstar, formerly of Kings College Road, pleaded guilty earlier this year to second-degree murder in the stabbing death of Clark Ernest Hunter Greene.
She was back before Court of King’s Bench Justice Kathryn Gregory on Friday to hear her decision on her sentence.
There’s only one sentence for second-degree murder prescribed in the Criminal Code of Canada: life in prison. However, the court had to render a decision on when Walsh will be able to first apply for parole.
The Code directs that for second-degree murder, parole eligibility is to be set between 10 and 25 years.
The prosecution had sought a 15-year period of parole ineligibility, while the defence recommended 12 years.
Walsh’s partner - Zachery David Murphy, 23, of Fredericton - also pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, but his parole ineligibility period was set at 11 years.
The defence conceded that Walsh’s should be slightly longer since she was the driving force behind the killing.
‘Explosion of violence’
Court heard previously that Walsh hatched a plan to lure Greene to Wilmot Park in downtown Fredericton in the wee hours of April 15, 2020, to rob him.
Walsh arranged to meet the victim at the gazebo in the park, but Murphy was lying in wait with a pipe, and he approached Greene from behind, striking him on the neck and incapacitating him.
That’s when Walsh pulled a knife out of Greene’s pocket, jumped on top of him and stabbed him repeatedly in the torso and the face, including in the victim’s eyes.
Then she stood and stomped on his face with her foot.
Court heard previously that Greene was stabbed in the face seven times and the chest 12 - with one blow puncturing his heart, another his lung and another cutting a pulmonary artery.
A passerby out for a walk later that morning found Greene’s bloody corpse by the gazebo and called police.
Gregory described the crime Friday as “an inexplicable, spontaneous explosion of violence.”
There was never a hint from the evidence that Greene posed a threat or was aggressive in any way, the judge said, noting everyone who knew him described him as “a gentle soul” and exceedingly positive, stemming in part from him being on the autism spectrum.
“Absent from the victim’s body were any defensive wounds,” she said.
While the Crown and defence agreed the plan was to rob Greene, Gregory said, there was also evidence that Walsh had some unexplained animosity toward the victim.
“Zach said it was only supposed to be a mugging,” the judge said, but he’d added that Walsh told him she’d had enough of Greene and kissed him as she asked him to help her “get rid of” the victim.
She said Walsh was able to perpetrate the crime in part because of Greene’s positive and autistic nature.
The victim-impact statements filed with the court by Greene’s family members are “heartbreaking,” the judge said, noting they’ve all been left reeling.
Gregory emphasized that Greene leaves behind a four-year-old daughter who’s too young to understand yet what happened to her father, and the future realization of his gruesome demise awaits her as she matures.
“While Angela Walsh is sentenced to life, so too is the family of Clark Greene,” the judge said.
‘A dreadful art and not a science’
Sentencing is always the most challenging of judges’ responsibilities, she said, notably in a case such as this one, given the horrific nature of the crime.
The court has to balance aggravating factors with mitigating ones, Gregory said, and the competing interests of denunciation of the offence with the prospect of rehabilitation for the offender.
“This is a dreadful art and not a science,” she said of sentencing decisions.
Gregory noted the case before her is “a highly emotional one,” but binding case law directs sentencing judges to avoid getting caught up in the grief understandably rocking a victim’s family and to exercise restraint in light of the powerful feelings a crime can evoke.
“The ultimate objective is dry-eyed justice,” she said.
Walsh is young and has some prospects for rehabilitation, the judge said.
She also acknowledged that she has a variety of mental-health issues that undoubtedly flow from a terrible upbringing as a product of group and foster homes through which she was subjected to abuse.
Walsh was using hard drugs - notably crystal meth and heroin - at the time of the murder, Gregory said, though she added, “While it is an explanation, it is not a strong one.”
She also had to consider Walsh’s greater responsibility in Greene’s death, and she questioned the veracity of the offender’s expression of remorse and apology to the victim’s family during her sentencing hearing last month.
The judge pointed out Walsh expressed no remorse in her pre-sentence report interview and has stated her memories of the murder seem more like a dream, that she wasn’t present for the killing and that it felt like someone else did it.
Gregory said the gruesome nature of the murder merited a longer period of parole ineligibility than the defence sought.
“This was senseless, unprovoked brutality which makes Angela Walsh a dangerous person,” she said.
However, the judge added that the fact it seemed more like a spontaneous, impulsive act than a coldly calculated one led her to decide on a shorter period than the Crown recommended.
How parole works
Gregory included in her decision something of a lecture on what parole really means and how public perception of it can be flawed.
She said regardless of any chance to apply for parole, Walsh is sentenced to life, and even if she is released on conditions sometime down the road, she’ll always be subject to that sentence.
There’s no guarantee Walsh will be granted parole even when she can apply for it, the judge said, and if and when the time comes when she’s granted parole, it’s not a get-out-of-jail free card.
“Being on parole means an offender is not free to do as they please,” the judge said.
The sentence is ongoing, Gregory said, and any violation of parole conditions can land an offender right back behind bars. The risk of re-incarceration always looms over an offender sentenced to life, she said.
However, the judge also pointed out that the parole ineligibility period is deemed to have begun when Walsh was taken into custody.
The offender was arrested May 2020, which means her remaining ineligibility period has just shy of 10 years remaining.
In addition to the prison term, the judge imposed orders requiring the offender to submit a DNA sample for inclusion in a criminal database, to refrain from possessing firearms and other weapons for life, and to have no contact with members of Greene’s family.
Don MacPherson can be contacted at ftonindependent@gmail.com.
More of the same. The victim is dead and she gets free room and board for 10 years. Then it's out you go just don't do it again.