An Edmonton judge has accepted guilty pleas from two accused and convicted two more in the horrific 2019 murder of 25-year-old Nature Duperron.
The woman from Calling Lake, which is part of Bigstone Cree Nation, was kidnapped off an Edmonton street by a group of four people who court was told were driving around high on drugs.
Duperron was robbed, repeatedly beaten inside a vehicle, force fed and injected with fentanyl, and left to die in the woods near Hinton, Alta., on April 7, 2019, according to a statement of facts agreed to by two more accused Kala Bajusz and Grayson Eashappie.
Bajusz and Eashappie both pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in September.
Buddy Underwood, of no fixed address, was found guilty at trial last week of second-degree murder, forcible confinement, kidnapping and robbery.
Tyra Muskego, of Onion Lake First Nation, was found guilty of manslaughter, forcible confinement and robbery.
Court heard the four knew each other from the drug trade.
Dupperon’s mother, Cheryl Uchytil-Nature, said all of them should have been convicted of first-degree murder.
“They could have just left it as is. But they continued to torture her all the way to Hinton, and past Hinton. When they made so many stops,” Uchytil-Nature told APTN News. “And they had time to stop what they were doing. They could have helped her. They could have phoned 9-1-1. They could have said something at the gas station or the Tim Hortons or McDonalds.
“They could have done something. But each one of them were all there, and they all followed through with their plan.”
Underwood and Muskego, who are both Indigenous, are scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 2.
