Roommate got away with killing until he confessed to undercover cops 21 years later
More than two decades after he killed his roommate and hid the body in a freezer, Randolph Westman confessed to undercover police officers, a Calgary judge heard Friday.
The details of the crime were made public as an agreed statement of facts was filed in court as part of the 58-year-old's plea and sentencing hearing.
Originally charged with second-degree murder in the 1996 death of Daniel Boysis Turner, 22, Westman pleaded guilty last week.
On Friday, he was sentenced to 13 years in prison for manslaughter and indignity to a body after Court of Queen's Bench Justice Robert Hall accepted a joint submission from prosecutor Mike Ewenson and defence lawyer Darren Mahoney.
Case goes cold
In 1996, the two men and Westman's wife, Linda, all lived together.
The victim was last seen at his home in the northeast Calgary community of Falconridge on Dec. 1, 1996, but he wasn't reported missing until 1998.
That's when two of Linda Westman's family members reported to police that they had overheard the couple talking about Boysis Turner's death "specifically indicating that the victim died at the hands of the accused."
Later that year, Linda Westman told police her husband had killed Boysis Turner. But police were unable to locate the body and there wasn't enough evidence to lay charges at the time.
Undercover operation
In 2017, police reactivated their investigation, targeting Westman in an undercover operation, a so-called "Mr. Big" sting.
Undercover officers befriended Westman and invited him to participate in a fictitious criminal organization, eventually eliciting several confessions.
According to the agreed statement of facts, Westman returned home on Dec. 1, 1996, to find his wife and Boysis Turner "engaged in intimate activity of some nature."
Westman believed the encounter was not consensual and attacked Boysis Turner, hitting him so many times, he believed he broke bones in both his hands.
Then, Westman retrieved a gun from his car and shot Boysis Turner in the head.
'I have no grave to visit'
Afterward, he cleaned the kitchen and hid the body in the fridge before he rented a freezer, where he stored Boysis Turner's remains until "he was able to discard the body in a rural location."
Westman was never able to remember where he hid the body.
He was finally charged in 2018.
Boysis Turner had been adopted but before he died had reconnected with his birth family. Two members of his birth family wrote victim impact statements as part of the sentencing. The sister he was raised with in his adoptive family also wrote a victim impact statement.
Theresia Boysis said that after she and her son found each other, they made plans to buy an acreage together.
"I wanted to see my son so bad and hold him in my arms," she wrote. "It hurts that I am unable to give my son a proper burial. I have no grave to visit."
