Photo: The Canadian Press
Alberta’s provincial flag flies on a flagpole in Ottawa, Monday, July 6, 2020. Grant Snesby, who is 72, was sentenced Thursday to 11 years in prison for killing an Indigenous woman in northern Alberta and later transporting her body of Manitoba. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld
A man was sentenced Thursday to 11 years in prison for killing an Indigenous woman in northern Alberta and later transporting her body to Manitoba.
Grant Sneesby, 72, stabbed Gloria Gladue multiple times in October 2015 before destroying her cellphone, burning her clothes, wrapping her body in plastic and storing it in a trailer.
At his trial, the court heard that at one point Sneesby transported the 44-year-old woman’s body to Manitoba.
Gladue, a member of the Bigstone Cree Nation, was last seen in Wabasca, Alta., about 330 kilometers north of Edmonton, in October 2015 and was reported missing by her family a month later.
Her remains were found in rural Manitoba nearly three years later by undercover RCMP officers.
In June, a jury convicted Sneesby of manslaughter instead of the original charge of second-degree murder. He had pleaded guilty to causing desecration of Gladue’s remains.
“This was a brutal and cruel murder,” Queen’s Bench Justice Paul Belzil said during the sentencing in Peace River, Alta. “Gloria Gladu’s life was senselessly ended by the actions of Mr. Sniseby.”
Sneesby was given seven years credit for time served in pretrial custody, leaving him with three years and 221 days to serve.
In addition to his prison sentence, Sneesby has a lifetime weapons ban.
