A judge sentenced a 25-year-old woman June 9 in Prince George Provincial Court to another year-and-a-half in jail after pleading guilty to manslaughter.
Danika Rose Payou, 25, was originally charged with second-degree murder after stabbing Cassie Larocque twice at the Sunrise Valley Mobile Home Park after midnight on Feb. 14, 2023.
“The injuries were severe and catastrophic, and almost immediately fatal,” Crown prosecutor Robert Climie told Judge Martin Nadon.
Payou and Larocque had been at a man’s residence with another woman where they ate dinner and socialized for several hours. Court heard that Payou and Larocque had been consuming methamphetamine before the incident at 12:21 a.m. The man they were visiting found Larocque lying on the floor, bleeding from stab wounds. He tried to resuscitate her, but went next door to call 911. Police arrived in four minutes and found a bloody knife on the floor near the front door.
Nadon officially sentenced Payou to five years in jail, but she qualified for 1,269 days in time-served credit, leaving 556 days to serve.
Nadon also sentenced Payou to three years of probation, with the first year being under a 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew. While on probation, Payou must not possess or consume alcohol or drugs without a prescription and must not possess weapons, including knives, but must report for a treatment and counselling program directed by a probation officer.
Nadon said that Payou has been substance-free during her time in custody, but Climie was concerned about her ability to stay sober when she returns to the community.
“That's based on her prior history,” Nadon said. “However, she did have a brief period of sobriety a couple of years before the chain of events that led to the matter that brings her to court.”
Pre-sentencing reports found Payou had a difficult upbringing in government care, feeling she did not belong as an Indigenous girl with Caucasian foster parents. She started to use alcohol and marijuana as a 13-year-old and then crack cocaine and methamphetamine on a daily basis by age 16. She worked in restaurants, hotels and the oil industry while the Ministry of Children and Family Development paid for an apartment, but she aged out of care when she turned 19.
“She wasn't able to afford an apartment, and eventually she returned to living on the streets, and by that time engaging in sex work to support herself,” Climie said.
She became pregnant at age 20, but after the child’s birth, returned to living on the streets.
Defence lawyer Jason LeBlond noted Payou confessed to the crime shortly after it took place, entered the guilty plea last August and has expressed regret.
“In so doing, we want to clearly acknowledge the profound loss to the family of Miss Larocque, and the profound tragedy in the fact that Miss Larocque is deprived of all of her opportunities,” LeBlond said. “She was a young lady with with many years of her life ahead of her.”
Victims services worker Aralee Hryciuk read a statement from Larocque’s mother, Diana Dergez, who was in the gallery. It said Dergez constantly mourns for her daughter, a Metis woman, who only ever wanted “to love and be loved.”
Dergez said her daughter was taken twice. First when she lost custody of Cassie at age nine to a man that abused her for nearly 30 years. Then by Payou.
“No parent should have to bury their child. No child should die in fear at the hands of someone who had no right to decide when her life should end,” Dergez wrote. “There are days I don't want to be here anymore, but I stay for my youngest daughter, who still needs me, because when I'm gone, she'll have no one.”
