A 23-year-old Mississauga woman, convicted of drowning her mother in a bathtub, is getting her release from prison just three years into her 10-year murder sentence.
Justice Bruce Duncan yesterday granted her bid to serve the remainder of her youth sentence in a Barrie halfway house.
The woman, convicted of first-degree murder in the infamous case dubbed the “Bathtub Girls” slaying, will be released July 7 from the Grand Valley Institution for Women and driven directly to Barrie, where she will be under house arrest.
She has been accepted in the science and engineering programs with scholarships at the University of Waterloo and will initially take courses online using a halfway house computer.
“Her freedom will be greater, but that is a privilege that has been earned and should be promoted,” said Duncan, who presided over the sensational trial in Brampton in 2005 and their sentencing in June 2006 as youths.
The woman and her younger sister, now 22, drowned their 43-year-old alcoholic mother in their townhouse bathtub in January 2003.
They were just 16 and 15. Their identities remain forever protected by Canada’s youth laws.
Duncan said to keep the “gifted and intelligent woman with superior intelligence” in prison any longer would be “little more than warehousing (her),” something he viewed as “unacceptable.”
It’s “important” for society to understand she will not be “let out,” Duncan said. She will be under a different form of custody.
“I don’t think it can now be said that it’s too much too soon,” said Duncan, who denied her first bid for early release.
