B.C. hitman pleads guilty to killing 15-year-old Katelyn Noble near Radisson, Sask. in 2007
A convicted hitman in British Columbia has admitted that he killed 15-year-old Katelyn Noble near Radisson, Sask., in 2007.
The girl's body has never been found.
Eduard Baranec pleaded guilty to manslaughter on May 20, 2021, in Saskatoon Court of Queen's Bench. He had originally been charged with first-degree murder.
Prosecutor Jennifer Claxton-Viczco presented a summary of facts at the court appearance.
"Mid-afternoon on Aug. 26, 2007, in the vicinity of Radisson, Saskatchewan, on a farm known by the locals as the Loessin Farm, the accused, Eduard Baranec killed 15-year-old Katelyn Noble," the summary said.
"The two were outside in the yard area at the farm in the coverage of bushes when Eduard Baranec slit her throat with a knife. He left her body in the bushes and returned to the house briefly and then left the farm."
Baranec returned with an accomplice and buried Noble's body, then returned later alone, dug up her remains and moved them to another location, the summary said.
Saskatoon defence lawyer Brian Pfefferle represents Baranec.
He said that Baranec originally made the admission of killing Noble to an undercover police officer posing as a crime boss.
Pfefferle said that Noble had gone to a rural property with another man.
"That's how he ended up at the farm and that's how she ended up with him at the farm," Pfefferle said.
" And I guess if you could say that in many respects, she was in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Noble moved to Saskatchewan from Mission, B.C., when she was 14 years old to live with a 35-year-old man. Baranec also lived with them. Noble had been staying on a farm west of Radisson at the time of her disappearance.
Noble and the 35-year-old had a fight and Noble left the farm without taking any personal belongings with her, police have said.
RCMP said they investigated Noble's disappearance for 11 years, with the work stretching from Ontario to B.C.
Baranec is currently serving a life sentence for the murder of B.C. mother Amanpreet Kaur Bahia. Baranec returns to court Sept. 24 for sentencing in the Noble case.
