REGINA — A young Regina man convicted of stabbing his former girlfriend to death with a hunting knife when he was 16 will be sentenced as an adult.
A packed courtroom burst into applause Wednesday as Skylar Prockner, now 19, got an automatic life sentence with no parole for 10 years after pleading guilty earlier this year to first-degree murder in the January 2015 death of Hannah Leflar.
Prockner didn't show any emotion as Justice Jennifer Pritchard delivered her decision. His family left the courtroom angrily shouting the sentence was unfair.
Hannah's mother Janet Leflar said the adult sentence, which lifts the publication ban on his name, was a hollow victory.
"We're relieved that he got the adult sentence," she said outside court. "We can finally say Skylar Prockner murdered my daughter which is a big victory for us but there are no winners today. Nobody won anything. She's still gone."
The Crown had sought an adult sentence, while the defence had argued that the youth had no criminal record before the homicide and "has mental health issues.''
"I didn't see how the judge could have made any other decision given the circumstances and the evidence and the obvious lack of remorse," Leflar said.
The court had previously heard that Prockner had trouble coping with being dumped by Hannah, and that he eventually stabbed her multiple times with a hunting knife after hiding outside her house waiting for her to walk home from school.
The 16-year-old girl was found in her Regina home by her stepfather.
At a sentencing hearing in May, the teen apologized in court saying he was unstable at the time and wants to spend the rest of his life doing good.
"I can't apologize enough for what I've done," he said at the hearing. "Everyone makes mistakes. It's what we do to right those wrongs that make us better."
Prockner said he's found peace in God.
"I know you may never forgive me for what I've done," he said. "But I will never stop asking God for forgiveness."
At the hearing, Hannah's mother told Prockner to "burn in hell" and urged the judge not to show any mercy to the killer of her only child.
"I will never know my daughter as an adult. I've lost my entire future because of this, a future that revolved around my daughter's plans. My future is now a blank wall,'' Leflar said.
Hannah was an honours student who had been named the top of her class for Grade 10 just before her death.
The sentencing hearing was told that after he and Hannah broke up, the youth had trouble coping.
When she started dating a different boy, he hatched a plan called "Project Zombify" to recruit friends to help him attack the couple with bats and knives.
The attack never took place because Leflar and that boyfriend broke up, but the youth kept tabs on her. When he saw she had a new boyfriend, he stabbed her to death in her home.
A second youth, who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, is expected to be sentenced in September. (The Canadian Press, CJME,
