This month, a young convicted killer admitted to a jury reviewing his parole application in Winnipeg, Canada, that if he could speak to his victim’s family, he would say, “I had no right to take away the life of your daughter, your sister, and I had no right to take away the life of the child she was carrying, and for that I’m sorry.”
In 2007, when he was just 19, Nathaniel Plourde and a 17-year-old accomplice struck a young mother over 20 times with a monkey wrench, and then a second accomplice beat her with a broken hockey stick. They then left Roxanne Fernando — whom Plourde had met when they worked together at a local McDonalds — and their preborn child to die in a snowbank. The Winnipeg Free Press reports, “Plourde and two accomplices abandoned her, still breathing but badly injured, in a snow-filled ditch on the city’s edge, where her frozen body was found days later.”
Fernando was 24 years old.
Plourde, now 36, has served 15 years of his 25-year life sentence and is eligible for parole through a now discontinued “faint hope” clause in Canada’s Criminal Code. If a jury decides in his favor, a final parole board will determine if he will be released.
In favor of his appeal is his age at the time of the crime. He is since said to have led a reformed life in prison. Aware that he might become eligible for parole, he was determined to gain an education, and volunteered in service to suicide prevention. Plourde has also reportedly become a Christian.
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Plourde confessed to the new 12-person jury that it wasn’t Fernando’s continued overtures toward him that drove him to kill her as he asserted in 2007, but her pregnancy and preborn child. He had begun a relationship with another coworker when he learned of Fernando’s pregnancy, and urged her to abort their baby. He described himself as “selfish” and angry at that time. Fernando was reluctant to get an abortion without a promise that Plourde would be there to help her afterward — and in response, he plotted to kill her as she got in her car to meet him for what she thought would be a date.
Not only has Plourde admitted the true reasons for his crime, he also acknowledged during the hearing that he had intentionally misled police during the investigation. He also wondered if he should pursue the appeal, as he knew it would upset Roxanne’s family.
Plourde stated during the hearing that his crime was “heinous” and had been difficult to admit, but that “[a]s a human being, you have to have some glimmer of hope.”
Tragically, pregnant women are more likely to die by homicide than by any pregnancy-related cause.
Editor’s Note: If you are a victim of domestic violence, please visit thehotline.org or call 1-800-799-SAFE.
