Teen who beat, recorded attack on McKay, sentenced to 40 months in custody
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 03/06/2018 (2300 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
A framed portrait of 19-year-old Serena McKay faced one of her killers from across the courtroom, as provincial court Judge Rocky Pollack imposed a maximum seven-year youth sentence Monday.
One of two teen girls who beat McKay, recorded the attack on video, and left her outside to freeze to death, will spend the next three years and four months in jail. She can’t be identified because she was only 17 when she killed McKay after a house party at Sagkeeng First Nation in April 2017.
Pollack sentenced the teen to slightly less time behind bars than the law allows. She was sentenced to 40 months of closed custody, rather than the maximum 48 months, to be followed by 23 1/2 months of conditional supervision. She was given credit for some of the time she’s spent in custody since her arrest last year.
Clutching her daughter’s portrait outside the courthouse, Delores Daniels said McKay’s family is “relatively pleased” with the judge’s decision. They had initially hoped the teen would be sentenced as an adult, which could have resulted in her being sentenced to life in prison — but Daniels said they have to accept the plea bargain made between Crown and defence lawyers.
The family has had a “rough year,” mourning McKay in the midst of a still-circulating, graphic online video that shows some of the young woman’s last moments alive.
“We miss her every single day,” Daniels said, describing her daughter as a beautiful and kind girl. “We know that she’s in a better place… she’s free from the violence.”
Before delivering a sentence, Pollack had to watch the videos of McKay being beaten and stomped on. He heard her cries and saw her swollen face. The sight seemed not to affect her killer as much as it did the judge and others who watched the video across the country and in other parts of the world, Pollack said.
“I must say that on the day I saw those videos, I was ready to write a single sentence sending you off to the maximum time in custody, inviting anybody who wanted to know my reasons to just watch them. It is rare that a judge has the opportunity to experience watching a cruel beating that led to the death of a helpless victim. Your decisions to make a video and, right after, to share it, only confirm that Serena McKay’s life meant nothing to you,” Pollack said Monday, emphasizing how the teen was triumphant in messages to friends and joked about having McKay’s blood on her hands.
“It was obviously easier for you to shake off those images, those images of her swollen, wounded face, than it was for me.”
Ultimately, Pollack decided the teen could benefit more from an increased period of supervision rather than the maximum time in custody. He noted the teen’s self-harm, past suicide attempts, anxiety, and character references that described her as quiet and respectful. She had no prior criminal record, but she started drinking when she was 15, before she became a teenage mother.
“The beer from that night had lots to do with your behaviour in the videos shown to me,” Pollack said.
“Although in the cold sobriety and solemnity of the courtroom, you are quite a different person,” he added, but fuelled by alcohol, she was “ready and willing” to join in on the beating.
The teen, who sat silently in the prisoner’s box, looking at the judge as he spoke, has vowed never to drink alcohol again.
She and a then-16-year-old girl fought with McKay after a house party April 22, 2017. They accused her of being disrespectful, and one held her down while the other stomped on her. Then, they went inside and locked the door.
The younger teen pleaded guilty to manslaughter, and is set to be sentenced later this month.
Justice for McKay, Pollack told her relatives Monday, starts with respect for her memory and continues with respect for the Victims Bill of Rights. Daniels and other members of McKay’s family wore red T-shirts that said “Justice for Serena.”
“No one should think that judges ignore the news or that they don’t read what’s on placards or on T-shirts,” he said.
The violent videos made the rounds on social media after the teen shared them following the attack and took on a life of their own online, allowing those who had never met McKay to watch her final moments. Pollack refused to allow into the court record victim-impact statements from people who didn’t know McKay but were traumatized from watching the video.
He said Monday the first-hand accounts from people who knew her “drew a world” around McKay, and illustrated what her death will continue to mean for her family and friends.
katie.may@freepress.mb.ca
Twitter: @thatkatiemay
Katie May
Reporter
Katie May is a general-assignment reporter for the Free Press.
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