A woman accused of killing her boyfriend led undercover officers who pretended to help her to a pier, parks and public washrooms on Nanaimo’s waterfront where she said she disposed of pieces of his body over months, her murder trial heard on Friday.
Paris Laroche, 28, is standing trial for first-degree murder and interference of human remains in the killing of Sidney Mantee, 32, in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver.
Laroche was approached on April 29, 2021, by two officers posing as father and son. They told her they were looking for Mantee to kill him to avenge his abusive treatment of their fictitious sister and daughter. She accepted their offer of help to get rid of evidence after she told them she killed him.
Police launched the undercover operation 10 days after Laroche had confessed to her best friend, Robyn Bartle, that she had killed Mantee and cut up his body. Bartle went to Nanaimo RCMP. Before that, police were treating Mantee’s disappearance as a missing person’s case.
According to an audio recording played in court, Laroche told the officers she had killed Mantee and stored him in the fridge and freezer for months. She handed over the hammers, saws and knives she had used, beginning in March 2020. She then led the undercover officers to locations where she disposed of his body over the next six months, according to recorded conversations played during the judge-alone trial presided over by Justice Robin Baird.
Laroche in graphic detail told the two men minutes after meeting them how she used a hammer to kill Mantee as he slept, according to the audio.
And she took them first to the pier that evening and showed them the garbage can she used to dispose of the body parts she carried out of her apartment in bags in a knapsack, usually at night so she wouldn’t be seen, she said.
“I tried to dice everything in bite-sized pieces for the fish,” she said on the recording. “It is food, we are food.”
She said she would empty the contents into the Pacific Ocean while standing on the pier near her place.
The undercover officer assured her they want to help her to ensure all the evidence of the murder won’t be able to be found, in gratitude for her killing Mantee, who had hurt their sister/daughter.
“I don’t want you guys to go out of your way too much,” she said.
“We’ll be sure that we get everything,” one of them told her.
At their next meeting, on May 2, 2021, the undercover officers wanted to have her continue to show them where she disposed of the body parts and repeat details of the killing while they videotaped it because during the first meeting the video failed and there was only audio.
She took them to Neck Point Park, Divers Lake, Pipers Lagoon and Maffeo Sutton Park, popular recreational areas near Nanaimo’s waterfront.
