WINNIPEG — The family of a woman who was stabbed numerous times and died in her killer's basement says she didn't deserve to be left in a shallow grave like garbage.
Brett Ronald Overby, 32, was found guilty in May of second-degree murder in the death of 21-year-old Christine Wood from the Oxford House First Nation in northern Manitoba.
"I'm carrying this heavy pain," Wood's mother, Melinda Wood, wrote in a victim impact statement read at Overby's sentencing hearing Tuesday.
Christine Wood had travelled to Winnipeg from her remote community in August 2016. She was staying at a hotel with her parents, who were in town to support a sick relative, the night she disappeared.
Her parents spent months handing out missing person flyers and searching for their daughter.
"I didn't want to leave Winnipeg until my daughter was found," Melinda Wood wrote.
Her body was discovered 10 months after she disappeared in a ditch near a farmer's field just outside the city.
A second-degree murder conviction carries a mandatory life sentence and the Crown is asking for 17 years before Overby is eligible for parole.
Court heard during Overby's trial that he and Wood had met on the online dating website Plenty of Fish and had arranged to meet for a few drinks.
Evidence showed that she was stabbed 11 times, her throat was slit and her skull and leg were broken. Blood was found all over Overby's basement.
He admitted to the killing but said he didn't remember what happened and didn't mean to harm the young woman.
Overby testified that he went back to his house with Wood but she started acting erratically and violently. He said she came at him with a knife after he took her down to his basement to show her a mouse skeleton.
He told court that's when he blacked out. He next remembered seeing Wood lying on the floor in a pool of blood.
Wood's father, George Wood, wrote that he often thinks about how his daughter suffered and it leaves him in agony.
"Christine was my only daughter, the baby of the family."
Wood's brothers, cousins and friends also submitted victim impact statements that described the anxiety and fear they have experienced since her killing. They said they worry for their own children, especially when they have to go to Winnipeg.
