An Oshawa judge has given the maximum youth sentence to a 15-year-old who pleaded guilty to the first-degree murder of a beloved Pickering grandmother.
During a hearing at an Oshawa courthouse Wednesday morning, Superior Court Justice Lisa Wannamaker said the teen — who can’t be identified due to provisions of the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) — must serve five more years in custody at a facility and then four years in the community as part of a supervised reintegration plan.
Under the YCJA, six years in custody is the maximum allowed as part of a youth sentence. Wannamaker gave a year of credit for pre-sentence custody.
During a hearing in April, the teen pleaded guilty to first-degree murder.
As part of the sentence, the teen received a lifetime weapons ban, a submission of DNA to a national registry, a non-communication order, a forfeiture of evidence seized as part of the Durham Regional Police investigation, and several other conditions when out as part of the community reintegration plan.
Eleanor Doney, an 83-year-old grandmother and retired Kindergarten teacher, was gardening in front of her Lynn Heights Drive home on May 29, 2025, when the teen stabbed her eight times. She died in a hospital a short time later.
The killing shook the north Pickering neighbourhood and devastated Doney’s husband of 63 years, forcing him to move out of their home and into an assisted-living facility, the judge said.
“There is no dispute that this was a horrific crime that forever changed the lives of many people,” Wannamaker told the Oshawa courtroom.
Pickering Mayor Kevin Ashe said in a statement to CityNews that the community continues to mourn Doney.
“We hope today’s sentencing brings a measure of justice and closure to her family,” he wrote.
Court heard that the day before the killing, the boy had been suspended for bringing a knife to school, was increasingly absent from class and facing expulsion as he fantasized about murder. Investigators found photos the boy had taken of the intersection near Doney’s house dating back nearly two weeks before the fatal attack, court heard.
Carrying a briefcase and wearing a black trench coat, the boy struck up a brief conversation with Doney before stabbing her eight times, the judge said. Surveillance footage captured the boy fleeing the scene and leaving the knife in a wooded area, where it was later found by police.
Police arrested the boy, who was 14 at the time, at his family home that evening and seized a knife set with his fingerprints on it and one knife missing, court heard.
Leading up to the murder, the boy had searched online for serial killers, stabbings and evading police detection, and in online conversations with other students at his elementary school he contemplated killing his grandmother and hurting animals, court heard.
More to come.
With files from The Canadian Press
Superior Court of Justice in Oshawa on July 15, 2026. CITYNEWS/Nick Westoll
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