Steve Bragg asks for forgiveness from victim's family as he awaits murder sentence
CBC
The man who killed a St. John's woman in 2017 asked for her family's forgiveness Tuesday, as lawyers debated his forthcoming prison sentence.
Steve Bragg, speaking quietly and without emotion, told the provincial Supreme Court that he was sorry for leaving Victoria Head's family without their daughter, mother and sister.
"I'm here to accept responsibility and punishment for my actions," he said, head bowed as he read from a prepared statement.
"I hope others can learn from my mistakes."
Bragg, who has remained incarcerated at Her Majesty's Penitentiary, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in May, avoiding what would have been a six-week jury trial.
His guilty plea will likely count toward his sentencing as a mitigating factor. But Crown attorney Lisa Stead pointed out that although Bragg accepted responsibility for the murder, his admission of guilt came late — 2½ years after Head's death.
Bragg also imposed a "brutal and terrifying manner of death" on Head by using a boot lace to strangle her, an act that required ongoing force. He then fled the province to evade police, Stead said.
Despite ample opportunity to seek medical help for Head, Bragg did not do so, she added, noting that he left her body with the ligature still wrapped around her neck.
"He was doing these things with intention," Stead argued.
She asked Justice Donald Burrage to hand down 15 to 17 years without parole, citing the crime's impact on its surviving victims, who submitted statements to Burrage on Tuesday.
Second-degree murder has a mandatory minimum of life in prison, with no chance of parole for anywhere from 10 to 25 years.
Head, a 36-year-old mother from Placentia Bay, left behind a teenage daughter when she was strangled by Bragg on Nov. 11, 2017.
In a victim impact statement, that daughter described the nightmare her life had become in the wake of Head's death.
"This is a sickness now that lives in my stomach, an ache in my heart, and a horror movie that plays on repeat in my head," Jasmine Head wrote, lamenting that she'll never know exactly what happened the night she lost her mother.
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