MANDEL: Vicious killer of ex-girlfriend gets discount for 'abhorrent' treatment during Maplehurst crackdown

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The Brampton judge described his slaying of his ex-partner while their son slept as one of the “most gruesome and horrific” cases of second-degree murder that she’s seen in her decade on the bench.

Superior Court Justice Jennifer Woollcombe still reduced Linval Ritchie’s period of parole ineligibility by two years — from 20 to 18 years — because of the “degrading and humiliating” Charter violations he suffered when he was stripsearched, ziptied and left in his boxers for hours during an infamous inmate crackdown at Maplehurst prison in December 2023 that is now the subject of an investigation by the province’s ombudsman.

But it could have been far worse. His lawyer Selwyn Pieters had argued that he should be able to apply in 2032.

For years, Ritchie had threatened to kill Vanessa Virgioni and in 2022, pleaded guilty to multiple offences including punching and choking her and threatening to cut off her head.

Three months after Ritchie was released on probation following nine months in jail, he made good on his threats.

At 1:40 a.m. on June 18, 2022, masked and armed with a knife, the jealous ex broke into the 29-year-old’s basement apartment. Their seven-year-old son was woken by his mother’s desperate screams.

“He went to the living room,” Woollcombe said, “and saw his dad do something to his mom’s head, and heard him say, ‘You’re done.'”

Ritchie told him to go back to bed. His mom yelled for him to run. He listened to his father, hoping it had just been a nightmare.

It wasn’t.

When he awoke, the boy found his mom’s body in a pool of blood in the living room, her head almost severed from her neck.

Last year, Ritchie, 32, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, which carries an automatic life sentence. The only issue for the judge was to determine when he can apply for parole. His lawyer argued for parole eligibility after just 10 years due to the inhumane treatment his client suffered when the Milton prison deployed its Institutional Crisis Intervention Team (ICIT) in response to another inmate assaulting a jail guard.

Court heard officers in riot gear stripsearched inmates in Unit 8 looking for weapons, forced them to sit on the floor while their wrists were zip-tied, paraded them through the halls in their boxers and then locked them down in their cells without blankets, clothes or medication for 37 hours.

Woollcombe agreed the treatment was cruel and unjustified.

“It was an unnecessary and excessive response against all inmates,” she said. “Mr. Ritchie was treated in a manner that, viewed cumulatively and objectively, was abhorrent.”

She rejected his claim that the ICIT deployment was due to systemic racism or disproportionately impacted those like him who are Black and suffer from mental health challenges — though she recognized it took a toll on his mental and physical wellbeing.

But the judge rightly refused to allow his experience of a few days negate the horror of what he did to his ex-partner and their son.

“Vanessa Virgione was a strong and independent woman who treasured her role as a mother above all else. She was loving, and she was a loving and committed mother who valued every moment she had with her son. She was kind, warm, loyal and sympathetic. She was a person who I am told lit up a room with her smile and laughter,” Woollcombe said.

Killing her in her own home and then leaving their son to find her body is “almost unimaginable,” she said.

“It is heartbreaking, cruel and unfair that any child has to endure what this boy has, knowing your father killed your mother while you slept in the nearby room, and then waking up to find her lifeless body,” the judge said. “He carries with him a haunting memory of what he witnessed, a memory that no person, much less a child, should ever have imposed on them by a parent.”

So no, this heartless killer won’t able to apply for parole after just 10 years from the date of his arrest in 2022.

Instead, Woollcombe said she would have set his parole ineligibility at 20 years, but took off two years for the Charter violations he endured.

“In my view, this strikes the right balance. It gives effect to the seriousness of what occurred at Maplehurst, but ensures that the sentence imposed is proportionate and fit for the life that Mr. Ritchie took.”

Though no amount of time can truly do that.

mmandel@postmedia.com

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