The killer of 15-year-old Laura Szendrei will know his fate in three weeks.
The 20-year-old offender cannot be named because he was under 18 (by a week) at the time of the murder, so he is considered a youth and cannot be named publicly under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
The man pleaded guilty to second-degree murder last October.
Szendrei, a student at North Delta’s Burnsview Secondary, died from injuries sustained after a brazen daytime attack on a pathway in Mackie Park near 110 Street and 82 Avenue on Sept. 25, 2010.
The young man was arrested and charged in February 2011.
Several days over the past few months were set aside for arguments in Surrey Provincial Court as to whether he should be sentenced as an adult.
An adult sentence for second-degree murder is life imprisonment, whereas a youth sentence carries a maximum of seven years, three of which are served in the community.
During the beginning of his sentencing hearing in July, Crown prosecutor Wendy Stephen said on the morning of the attack, the young man awoke at 9 a.m. with an urge to have sex.
The court heard the killer did some work with his dad and decided he was going to act on his urge. He packed a pipe and zap straps and went to Mackie Park in North Delta, where he saw Szendrei, who he didn’t know.
Upon seeing her, he tried to loop a zap strap around her neck, hoping to render her unconscious so he could have sex with her.
She saw him and started to run, and that’s when he struck her in the head with a pipe three times. She died in hospital later that evening.
The court heard it was the killer’s fourth sex-motivated attack in six months – the three others taking place near Burns Bog.
In the first, he grabbed a woman’s buttocks, in the second he pulled down a runner’s pants, and in the third, he hit a woman in the head with a stick.
Those details came out in a so-called “Mr. Big” undercover police investigation.
His sentencing is expected to take place in Surrey Provincial Court on Oct. 18.
