A Nanaimo woman charged with murdering and dismembering her boyfriend denied to police interrogators that she killed him, even after she was played audio of her telling undercover officers that she used a hammer to “whack” him, her trial heard Thursday.
Paris Laroche, 28, is being tried for first-degree murder and interfering with human remains in the killing of Sidney Mantee, 32, in March 2020.
She confessed to her best friend and then to two undercover officers, also in April 2021, according to her trial being heard before Justice Robin Baird in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver.
After the trial heard the taped recording of more than four hours of the police interrogation by RCMP Sgt. Tiffany Isenor, which took place on May 27, 2021, the day she was arrested and charged with the crimes, Isenor for the first time spoke about the murder.
“So I have to ask,” said Isenor as they sat in an interview room at the Nanaimo RCMP. “Did you kill Sidney?”
“No,” replied Laroche.
And soon after, she said: “I’d rather speak to a lawyer,” a request she repeats several times through the interview that continued from 4:30 to 11:30 p.m. that day.
She told her she was happy to talk about her life, but didn’t want to get into details of her breakup with Mantee.
She said they split on March 3, 2020, after an argument over how she was making coffee, and he packed a bag and she hadn’t seen or heard from him since.
Isenor also told Laroche that about 50 police officers were involved in the murder investigation and were conducting a search of her apartment at that time.
“What do you think they’re going to find?” asked Isenor.
“I have no idea,” she said.
The trial had previously heard that Laroche had told two undercover officers that she had killed Mantee in their apartment and dismembered his body, keeping parts of it in the fridge for up to six months and disposing of it in various parks and other areas of Nanaimo.
The police found 12 bone fragments after she led them to the various spots, court has heard.
At around 9 p.m. during the 2021 interrogation, Isenor brings in an audio recording that Isenor said investigators had just given her, a recording she said was “kind of hard for me to hear,” telling Laroche she wanted her to “speak your truth” about it.
“Oh, the evidence you have against me,” said Laroche.
After hearing the clip from the undercover operation during which she told them: “I just grabbed the hammer and whack, whack, whack,” Laroche replied: “I think I want to speak to my lawyer.”
Isenor said it was “obviously a shock to me to hear this” and she wanted to give Laroche the chance to tell her side of what happened.
“I have nothing more to say to you except with my lawyer,” said Laroche.
But the interrogation continued for hours and Laroche said later: “Like I told them [undercover officers], it was either me or him … I think the term is battered woman.”
Isenor pressed her for details and Laroche replied: “This is the part here I need to keep my mouth shut about the details.”
Isenor repeatedly over several hours gave Laroche the opportunity to confess to the murder, saying it would unburden her and give her freedom.
“Keeping that s— bottled up inside” causes stress and inflammation, said Isenor. “I don’t want to see that happen to you.”
Robyn Bartle, Laroche’s best friend and the person she first told about the murder and the person who first went to the police, came in and they sat on the couch clutched in a warm embrace for more than five minutes, the video played in court showed.
Sobbing is heard and later, during the 45 minutes they were together, the two chatted, giggled and wrestled.
A male officer entered the room and said Bartle would have to leave soon and in what appeared to be an attempt to have Laroche confess, he said, “knowing she has your back, it’s your turn now, Paris.”
“I want to talk to my lawyer,” she said.
“Get it off your shoulders, get it out, that’s what’s important,” he said.
Later she told Isenor again, “I’d rather be safe and speak with my lawyer and see how it goes.”
“I’ll speak to a lawyer and figure out how to pay off this problem,” she said. “I’m pretty sure they’ll give me my options or none at all. I’m probably going to do some community service or I’m going to do some jail time.”
The male officer returned a second time and said the evidence team had found “positive presumptive tests” for blood in her apartment, behind the baseboards, the area she had discussed with the undercover officers being worried about not cleaning well enough. They would be sent to a lab for identification, he said.
The male officer said investigators discovered she had called in sick on March 5, and was she sure the murder happened on March 3, the date she said was when they split up?
The male officer, before leaving, let her know she had the chance to “correct us when we’re wrong” and “our job is not to exploit situations” or “twist words.”
