Katelynn Sampson: Guardians sentenced to life in prison for murdering 7-year-old Toronto girl

Katelynn Sampson: Guardians sentenced to life in prison for murdering 7-year-old Toronto girl

Published on Tuesday May 01, 2012

Betsy Powell

Courts Bureau

Katelynn Sampson was “completely defenceless, and the people required to protect her are the people who killed her,” a judge said Tuesday as he sentenced the dead 7-year-old’s legal guardians to mandatory life imprisonment.

Donna Irving, 33, and her boyfriend Warren Johnson, 50, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the little girl’s shocking death almost four years ago. They will not be eligible for parole for 15 years.

When Toronto police searched the home where Katelynn died on Aug. 3, 2008, after prolonged physical abuse, they found a piece of paper on which the little girl had printed a heartwrenching sentence 62 times:

While Katelynn was “edging closer to death” in the couple’s small Parkdale apartment, Johnson went to the beer store not once but twice, and Irving went out for a walk, rather than seek medical attention.

“The utter disregard for that child’s health and welfare is shocking and inhumane,” Superior Court Justice John McMahon said in sentencing the pair.

Crown attorney Hank Goody read an agreed statement of facts that included a litany of disturbing and horrific details of the 70 different wounds found on Katelynn’s body — all inflicted after she moved in with the couple.

The agreed-to facts also provided a roadmap of failures in a system that didn’t detect nor stop the violence suffered by the little girl.

When Irving told the Children’s Aid Society on March 30, 2008, that she did not think she could provide for Katelynn and wanted her out of her home, the agency “passed the buck” to the Native Child and Family Services — Irving is part First Nations — and nothing was done, McMahon stated. (When a Native Services caseworker contacted Irving 16 days later, she lied and indicated the Toronto School Board was providing support and that she wanted the file closed, which it was.)

“Alarm bells were ringing and no one was responding,” McMahon said. “If someone had, we would not be here in this courtroom.”

Katelynn moved in with Irving and Johnson and their two young sons in May 2007 after her mother, Bernice Sampson, asked Irving, a friend, to take care of her daughter because she was addicted to crack cocaine. Sampson promised to pay her $200 a month.

But rather than receiving a loving sanctuary, Katelynn wound up resented by her cash-strapped legal guardians, who complained to social workers and teachers about “discipline issues” and whined about her being a financial burden.

By 2008, Katelynn’s school attendance at Parkdale Public School was increasingly erratic and, when she did show up, her Grade 2 teacher noticed bruising on her arms and legs. On another occasion, a principal also noted bruising and red marks on her hands. Katelynn said she was helping her parents cook spaghetti when hot water spilled on her hands.

After May 1, she didn’t show up to any classes until the end of the school year — absences Irving covered up with lies to school authorities about the family going to care for a recently widowed uncle on a native reserve in Northern Ontario.

Despite the problems, Irving pressed ahead seeking full custody of Katelynn.

According to medical evidence, Katelynn was already suffering horrific physical abuse when Ontario Court Justice Debra Paulseth legally sanctioned her living arrangement with the unemployed couple on June 6, 2008.

Goody told court while it may have been a coincidence, there appeared to be an “acceleration of injury infliction” after the couple received a government letter in July that could have been “misinterpreted” to mean no more child care benefits for Katelynn were forthcoming.

On the long holiday weekend in August, Irving refused to give Sampson permission to take her daughter to Caribana.

Then, on Aug. 3 at 2:30 a.m., Irving called 911, asking for help.

“We need emergency. My daughter choked and I think she died … I was in the bedroom and she was eating bread and she choked and she’s dead,” Irving told a 911 operator.

When paramedics arrived at the apartment at 105 Westlodge Ave., they found a little girl lying on the living room floor covered head-to-toe in bruises. She was already dead.

“All I want to know is why,” a tearful Sampson said reading her victim impact statement.

Crown attorney Nicole Bailey read a victim impact statement submitted by Mark Letang, Katelynn’s biological father.

“I’m ashamed to show my face. I feel like I’m being blamed,” his statement said. “I feel like I’ve lost my mind.”

Wearing a green sweatshirt and pants, her long brown hair tied into a ponytail, Irving wept and asked Sampson to forgive her, something she says she’s unable to do herself.

“I wish every day this happened to me and not to her,” Irving sobbed. “For the rest of my life that little girl will haunt me. I’m so sorry Bernice,” she said, turning around in the prisoner’s box to look at Sampson.

Johnson also apologized. “Katelynn deserved to be loved … I take responsibility for my part.”

Katelynn’s death ignited a firestorm in 2008 after it was revealed Irving got full custody despite chronic drug use and criminal convictions for prostitution, narcotics and violence. The Ontario Judicial Council later dismissed a complaint against the family court judge.

During the sentencing portion of Tuesday’s hearing, Irving’s lawyer, Daniel Brodsky, outlined his client’s tragic history. Irving’s mother, who is native, introduced her to alcohol when she was 7 and by age 12 she had been raped and was doing crack.

Outrage over the circumstances led the Ontario government to introduce child custody reforms requiring non-parents applying for custody to provide a police background check as part of their application.

Forensic examination of the Irving/Johnson apartment found Katelynn’s blood in every room, in closets, and in the main hallway that connected the living room with the bathroom and bedrooms, on surfaces including walls, floors, doors and furnishings, he said.

“The only reasonable inference I can draw was she was in the linen closet, in that small space,” McMahon said.

The Crown is unable to prove whether it was Irving or Johnson who caused the injuries to Katelynn, Goody said, adding the Crown is not required to do so. “Under our law, Ms Irving is accountable for Katelynn’s death because she failed to fulfill the duty of care she owed,” Goody said. “Mr. Johnson is likewise accountable for Katelynn’s death.”

McMahon noted that addition to the appalling physical injuries inflicted on Katelynn, she was also a victim of neglect and psychological cruelty.

Among the items found in Katelynn’s sparsely furnished bedroom was a paperback book titled The Devil’s Chimney. On the underside, which was stained with Katelynn’s blood, Irving had printed:

The couple’s two sons, toddlers when Katelynn was living under the same roof, suffered no physical abuse and are now in foster care, the court was told.