Victim 'tortured to death,' judge says as he sends Marissa Shephard away for 25 years

Convicted murderer Marissa Shephard was sentenced Friday to life in prison without possibility of parole for 25 years for the killing of Moncton teenager Baylee Wylie.

"Mr. Baylee Wylie was quite simply tortured to death," Justice Zoël Dionne said as he delivered his sentence in Moncton Court of Queen's Bench.

Shephard, 22, of Moncton, was found guilty last month of first-degree murder and arson with disregard for human life in the 2015 slaying of the 18-year-old.

• What the jury didn't hear at Marissa Shephard's 1st-degree murder trial
• 'Justice for Baylee': Marissa Shephard guilty of 1st-degree murder and arson

She got three years for the arson, minus time already served, which will be served concurrently with the first-degree murder sentence.

'People's opinions were everywhere'

Court heard an emotional victim impact statement from Baylee's aunt, Angela Wylie.

"Telling my sister that her baby was gone, that moment is something that I can never erase from my memory," Wylie told the court.

Wylie said her life since Baylee's death has been "pure anguish."

"No matter how much I tried to avoid it, people's opinions were everywhere," she said.

She and her nephew were very close.

"I remember laying on Baylee's grave at one point, just wanting to see him one more time," she said, as many in the two rows of supporters started crying. 

Shephard had no visible reaction, looking straight at the judge as Angela Wylie read her statement aloud.

'Drugs, alcohol and prostitution'

Shephard's defence lawyer, Gilles Lemieux, spoke next.

"Four kids, four lives ruined," he said.

"And the elephant in the room — drugs, alcohol and prostitution. It has caused immeasurable losses."

Lemieux went on to say that in Shephard's case, the loss was that of the chance to grow into adulthood and be a mother to her son.

Moments after he spoke those words, the victim's mother, Amanda Wylie, stood up and ran out of the courtroom.

Baylee was her only child.

She was heard sobbing loudly outside the courtroom. Two people ran after her to console her.

"Everybody knows these kids were full of drugs … Were it not for these issues, maybe we wouldn't be here today," Lemieux explained outside court after the hearing. "Just a thought," he said.

After both sides spoke, the judge asked Shephard if there was anything she wanted to say to the court. She said, "No thanks."

The defence was supposed to have a pre-sentence report, but the judge said it wasn't completed because Shephard chose not to take part in the meeting.

Will 'definitely' appeal

Lemieux spoke to Shepard after the sentencing hearing. He told reporters she was disappointed with the legal process. 

"Oh I would definitely — definitely say she's going to appeal. No doubt about it," said Lemieux.

When asked why, Lemieux simply answered: "That's for another day and another person."

He said there are issues that need to be addressed in appeal court, and that it would have been harder to obtain a conviction if Morningstar's taped statements to police —putting Shephard at the crime scene — were not played in court.

During the trial, Morningstar was called by the Crown on three separate occasions to testify. Each time he refused.

It took almost three weeks for a decision to be made whether the taped statements would be allowed to be heard in court.

Brutal murder

Firefighters discovered Wylie's battered and burned body beneath a mattress in Shephard's smouldering New Brunswick Housing townhouse on Sumac Street during the early morning hours of Dec. 17, 2015.

He had suffered more than 140 "sharp-force injuries" — most of them while he was still alive, the jury heard during the two month-long trial.

During a drug-fuelled night of partying, Wylie had been bound to a chair, his face covered in plastic wrap, and had been beaten and stabbed with multiple objects, including a broken mirror, a box cutter, a curtain rod, screwdrivers and a dagger.

The jury delivered its unanimous guilty verdict on May 8 after only about four hours of deliberations.

Shephard is the last of three people accused of killing Wylie to be convicted.

Devin Morningstar, 20, is serving a life-sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years after being found guilty of first-degree murder and arson with disregard for human life. He appealed his conviction last summer but lost.

Tyler Noel, 20, is serving a life sentence with no chance of parole for 16 years after pleading guilty to the lesser charge of second-degree murder and arson with disregard for human life.