Killer will stay locked up

A man who killed his friend and then cut her body into seven pieces has been labelled a dangerous offender and ordered locked up for an indeterminate period after a judge ruled that’s the only way to make sure he doesn’t take another life.

Nathaniel Jessup, 36, was sentenced Tuesday following a conviction two years ago on one count each of manslaughter and offering an indignity to human remains — a troubling case referred to by the trial judge as “macabre” and “beyond the pale.”

Jessup was homeless in the summer of 2015 when he attacked Katherine McAdam, his friend. He killed her on Aug. 15, 2015, inside the basement suite she rented on Cedar Street in Creston.

McAdam’s dismembered remains were discovered 12 days after her death on an acreage outside Creston. Jessup decapitated McAdam and removed each of her limbs.

Following his conviction, prosecutors applied to have Jessup deemed a dangerous offender — a label saved for Canada’s most serious and violent criminals. Dangerous offenders are locked up indefinitely unless a judge is satisfied a lesser sentence would adequately protect the public.

In determining Jessup’s fate, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Dennis Hori considered his lengthy criminal record, which includes a number of violent offences — including five convictions for assaulting corrections staff and an incident in which he choked a five-year-old boy, nearly killing him.

Hori determined Jessup’s violent behaviour is “intractable” — a finding necessary to have him labelled a dangerous offender.

“It is my view that Mr. Jessup will not be able to overcome his violent behaviour,” he said. "Accordingly, I find that Mr. Jessup’s violent conduct is intractable and I find that Mr. Jessup is a dangerous offender."

Crown prosecutor Laura Drake sought an indeterminate sentence while defence lawyer John Gustafson suggested between six and 12 years of new time.

Hori sided with the Crown, saying Jessup has to be kept behind bars to ensure no one else is killed or seriously injured by his actions.

“I am not satisfied that any sentence less than a detention in a penitentiary for an indeterminate period would adequately protect the public from Mr. Jessup committing murder or serious personal-injury offence,” he said.

The indeterminate sentence is related to the manslaughter charge. Hori sentenced Jessup to serve three years concurrently for indignity to McAdam's remains.

Jessup was also given a lifetime firearms prohibition and ordered to submit a sample of his DNA to a national criminal database.

He was acquitted following a previous murder trial in Kamloops in 2019. Jessup was charged with second-degree murder in the 2014 death of Dylan Levi Judd, his former cellmate at Kamloops Regional Correctional Centre.

In that case, a judge ruled there was not enough evidence to prove Judd did not take his own life — as police initially believed.