No appeal filed in case of slain Saskatoon infant

Warning: This story contains content some readers may find disturbing.

There will be no appeal of the sentence of a teenage girl who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the 2016 death of a six-week-old baby in Saskatoon.

With the expiry of the 30-day period to file an appeal, a publication ban on the identity of Jacqueline Henderson is also lifted.

Media were forbidden from reporting Henderson’s name throughout her trial because she was 16 when she beat Nikosis Jace Cantre to death on July 3, 2016. The ban is no longer in effect because she was sentenced as an adult.

In the hearings leading up to Henderson’s sentencing, court heard Cantre’s family took her in after finding her wandering the streets following an escape from the Kilburn Hall Youth Centre — where she had been serving a youth sentence for assault.

Six-week-old baby Nikosis Jace Cantre was murdered in Saskatoon on July 3, 2016. (Submitted)

According to a video confession played in court last December, the family provided her with food and clothes and drank with her at their home.

In the video, Henderson described walking into the baby’s room and holding him “like a mom.” She said she became angry and laid Cantre on the bed and began punching and suffocating him.

“I was sick and tired of life. That’s why I hurt that baby and killed it,” she said in the video.

Henderson was sentenced Feb. 27  in Saskatoon Provincial Court. At that time,  defence lawyer Brian Pfefferle noted his client had been diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome and had allegedly been abused by her foster father.

Psychological reports submitted by the Crown indicated the teen had a history of violence, including squeezing the life out of a mouse at a pet store and nearly killing her 10-year-old cousin with morphine pills.

Judge Sanjeev Anand sentenced Henderson as an adult, recommending she serve her time at Saskatoon’s Prairie Regional Pyschiatric Centre, where she’d be in the care of trained professionals.

Second-degree murder carries an automatic life sentence. Because Henderson is a youth sentenced as an adult, she will be able to apply for parole after seven years.

—With files from Chris Vandenbreekel