Family of an eight-year-old girl found dead in a hockey bag in central Alberta cried while reading victim impact statements during a sentencing hearing for the woman charged in the killing.
They say Nina Napope was kind and loving and that her siblings wonder where she is.
Justice Jody Fraser lifted a publication ban on the girl’s identity at the request of her family.
Nina’s body was found in the hockey bag in the back of a truck on the Samson Cree Nation in Maskwacis, south of Edmonton, in 2023.
Court heard she suffered from chronic abuse and neglect while in the care of Ashley Rattlesnake.
The woman was initially charged with murder and pleaded guilty last year to manslaughter, prompting Edmonton’s police chief to urge Crown prosecutors to call off a possible plea deal.