The teenager who pled guilty to killing an elderly woman in Pickering, Ontario, has been sentenced to the maximum sentence for a youth convicted of first-degree murder.Crown prosecutors and defence attorneys agreed that the teen, who is 15 now and was 14 at the time of the murder, should serve ten years for his crime, the maximum allowable by law under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.The teen had pled guilty in April to first-degree murder for stabbing and killing Eleanor Doney, 83, in May 2025.According to the court, he will serve five years in custody and four years under community supervision, with the additional year being attributed to his detainment in pretrial custody.The Oshawa court heard testimonies from Doney's family, who spoke about her kindness and the importance religion was in her life. The judge, Justice Lisa Wannamaker, referred to a statement by Doney's husband where he said his late wife was "like a cool breeze that would bring love, life, from her saviour, Jesus." .After the testimonies from the families, Wannamaker said that she hoped that listening to the families' testimonies would make the teen take his rehabilitation seriously.According to a medical report provided in court, the teen has apparently been responsive to treatment in pretrial custody and has been labelled as having a low to moderate risk to reoffend.According to court documents, the Crown had initially sought to try the teen on adult charges due to the nature of his crime but could not prove that he had "adult-like maturity" when he committed the offence.Due to this, both the Crown and the defence sought the maximum possible sentence for a youth offender, with the only difference being the defence asked for the sentence to include the one year the teen had spent in pretrial custody while the Crown wanted the time served to begin after the trial.On Tuesday, the teen had apologized for his actions and expressed regret for killing Doney, being quoted as saying that he had "made a grave mistake."The teen cannot be identified due to offenders under the age of 18 being covered under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
