Ryan Grantham: the former child actor who murdered his mother and planned to kill a world leader
Up until the chilling events of March 31st, 2020, Ryan Grantham was known as a promising young former child actor with a seemingly assured adult career in film and television.
Grantham counted some respectable screen time on his CV by the age of 21. Among some 30 credits to his name were Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, and several episodes of Supernatural and iZombie. But it was his brief but consequential 2019 role in Archie Comics mystery show Riverdale that teen audiences likely first were exposed to Grantham’s acting chops, playing the hit-and-run killer Jeffrey Augustine, who kills Fred Andrews, played by Luke Perry.
Three years later, violence would meet the Grantham family. Taking a gun, Grantham pointed the firearm at the back of his 64-year-old mother, Barbara Waite’s head, as she played the piano and fired a fatal shot in their Squamish home north of Vancouver.
Grantham would then record a confession to a Go-Pro camera shortly after, filming his mother’s body while stating, “I shot her in the back of the head. In the moments after, she would have known it was me.” Disturbingly, Grantham’s revelation to the camera suggests his mother may have experienced a brief time of consciousness before succumbing to the shot.
Drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana for several hours following the murder, Grantham arranged his mother’s body in a seemingly religious pose before loading a car with three guns, plenty of ammunition, 12 Molotov cocktails, camping supplies, and directions to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Rideau Cottage residence. Reportedly driving 200 kilometres toward the town of Hope, Grantham abandoned briefly entertained plans to commit a mass shooting at Simon Fraser University or Lions Gate Bridge and drove straight to a Vancouver police station.
“I killed my mother,” Grantham bluntly told an officer upon arrival.
Initially charged with first-degree murder, Grantham remained in custody for the next 2½ years in receipt of a mental health programme. Eventually tried in 2022 for the lighter second-degree, Grantham was sentenced to life behind bars, with possible parole only being eligible after 14 years. Throughout the trial, Grantham’s defence had tried to argue the case that anxiety and clinical depression should stand as mitigating factors for the final judgment, as well as urged to kill himself and others, resulting in the downgraded charge and lenient parole timeline.
It’s a devastating case, rendered all the more unsettling by its violent unpredictability and eerie lack of answers. Reportedly, some faint rationale was gleaned. Grantham, in his murderous state, deemed his mother to be a necessary kill to avoid suspicions for his greater ‘plans’, as reported by The New York Times. Expressing deep sorrow, Grantham addressed the Vancouver court and expressed a contrite apology while reading from a piece of paper.
“In the face of something so horrible, saying sorry seems so pointless,” he told the room and Justice Kathleen M Ker. “But from every fibre of my being, I am sorry.”
