A woman serving a life sentence for murdering a four-year-old boy in Montreal nearly 18 years ago broke down and wept several times Friday during a hearing where she is asking a jury to be able to ask for early parole.
“I treated him like a punching bag,” Stéphanie Meunier, 47, said through tears as she described the days before she killed Jérémy Bastien-Perron on Dec. 6, 2008.
“When you can say that you took a child for a punching bag, it is very difficult. Today, I am aware that what I did was monstrous. I’ve thought about this for a long time. I was a monster for a long time. I know that my suffering (leading up to the murder), my drug use, my bad choices created the circumstances where I, many times, raised my hand to Jérémy and I treated him like a punching bag.”