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Ontario parents found guilty in grisly murder of teen Tiffany Gayle

A court sketch shows murder victim Tiffany Gayle's parents, Federick, 45, and stepmother Elizabeth Gayle, 46. Both are accused of first-degree murder in her beating death.

She came to Canada to be with her family, but there is little indication that she found a home here, not even for a moment.

Tiffany Gayle, a 15-year-old girl who moved to Brampton, Ont., from Jamaica, was found dead in June 2010, beaten and left in a bloody bathtub just 17 months after coming to Canada to live with her father and stepmother.

She fought with her parents, who threatened to send her back to Jamaica, and wrote that she couldn’t make her caretakers happy.

On Wednesday, those caretakers were found guilty of murder.

680 News reports Fedrick Gayle, 45, and Elizabeth Gayle, 46, were found guilty of first-degree murder in the death of 15-year-old Tiffany Gayle.

[ Related: Tiffany Gayle's beating death a 'team' act, Crown says ]

A Brampton jury took five hours to find the pair guilty, paring through bitter accusations leveled at each suspect by the other.

The conviction follows an intense and often brutally graphic trial, during which Tiffany's father and stepmother denied responsibility for savagely beating the girl to death.

CBC News reports that the Crown argued that both parents were involved in the attack and pointed to blood found on their clothing, as well as bloody footprints found in the basement.

It was alleged that in 2010, the pair attacked the girl with a baseball bat and barbecue utensil, in an assault that began in the garage and made its way into the family's Brampton home, where the young victim was later found in a bathtub.

Elizabeth Gayle's lawyer had argued she watched her husband strike Tiffany three times with a baseball bat while begging him to stop. She was so distraught, he argued, that paramedics attending the scene had to check her for vital signs, while her husband remained calm.

According to QMI Agency, at the same time, Federick's lawyer claimed Elizabeth Gayle "spoke ill of the dead" and was angry at the victim for lying and being a poor cook.

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The parents' motives were not made entirely clear over the course of the trial, but there was evidence that suggested a division between Tiffany and her parents, including suicidal notes and testimony from her half-sister that the pair was considering sending her to Jamaica, where she had lived until she moved to Canada shortly before the murder.

Samantha Gayle also testified that her father had urged her to change her testimony in order to "cover for him." Her testimony said she herself had been shipped back to Jamaica after being "disrespectful."

In the end, the forensic evidence spoke volumes about what happened the day Tiffany Gayle was killed. The sets of bloody footprints, an attempt to clean the scene, blood spatter and dents left in the tub.

They threatened to send her back to Jamaica and instead, a jury found, they killed her.