GODERICH, Ont. -- An Ontario man who led authorities on an intense manhunt across the province and into Quebec pleaded guilty Monday to second-degree murder in the slayings of three people and was sentenced to life without parole for 25 years.
Jesse Imeson, 23, had been charged with three counts of first-degree murder for strangling a student in Windsor, Ont., to death, then shooting dead an older couple he had tied up in the basement of their farm home in southwestern Ontario.
"Their deaths represent an enormous loss," Ontario Superior Court Justice Roland Haines said in sentencing Imeson.
The killings were "savage and senseless," Haines added.
The Crown said it accepted the plea on the lesser charges on the condition that Imeson agree to be sentenced to life with a minimum of 25 years without parole eligibility for the murders of Bill and Helene Regier, of Mount Carmel, Ont.
The sentence is the same as if he had been convicted of first-degree murder.
Imeson was sentenced to life without possibility of parole for 15 years for killing Carlos Rivera, an architectural student.
The convicted killer showed little signs of remorse in court, occasionally smirking when family members read impact statements about their devastating losses.
"Our lives were shattered," said Carol Denomy, daughter of the Regiers.
"It was sudden, violent, undeserved and defenceless."
About 100 people were in the court, some of whom sobbed audibly as family members talked about the impact the killings had on their lives.
One of Rivera's brothers, in his impact statement, said, "Carlos, in a way, helped take a demon out of society."
Hands shackled at the waist, Imeson told the court he had nothing to say, but his lawyer read a statement on his behalf in which the killer said he was "very sorry," an apology relatives of his victims denounced as "hollow."
"I will be an old man before I am released, if I ever am," the statement read.
"I am truly sorry. Please forgive me."
Shortly after his capture, however, Imeson told an undercover cop that he had no regrets about killing Rivera, a man he had met just hours before the murder.
As for the Regiers, he later said: "What's to know? Shots were fired. People died."
The killings of the Regiers near the town of Grand Bend, Ont., created a sense of panic and fear, prompting an intense hunt for the fugitive.
Imeson was captured after an eight-day search on July 31, 2007, near a small Quebec town across from the Ontario border.
