St. Albert's Beryl Musila was handed nearly 2.5 years behind bars for the charge of indecently interfering with Ronald Worsfold’s remains.
Beryl Musila’s sentencing continued today as Justice Larry Ackerl gave Musila’s 2.5 years, reduced by 30 days, for the lesser charge she is facing.
The sentence is largely a formality, as it will be served concurrently with Musila’s life sentence for the first-degree murder of Worsfold. Musila pleaded guilty to indecently interfering with Worsfold’s remains at the outset of the trial. Musila pleaded not guilty to Worsfold's murder and represented herself during the nine-week-long trial, but a jury eventually found her guilty.
Ackerl reduced the sentence for interfering with human remains because of an earlier arbitrary detention in which Musila’s Charter rights were violated.
After she murdered Worsfold, Musila loaded his body into a tote container, travelled with it to several locations and eventually took it with her to a party at a rural property owned by her friend.
Musila and two friends at the party, who did not know the container held a body, loaded the container onto a farm truck and disposed of it in a makeshift dump on the rural property.
Earlier in the trial Musila argued that she did not know that Worsfold’s body would be disposed of on the property, and yesterday she urged the court to consider that Robert Rafters, her boyfriend at the time of Worsfold’s death, helped her move the body.
In his decision, Ackerl said that it was “impossible, if not preposterous that [Musila] didn’t know” that Worsfold’s remains would be disposed of in the woods.
He said that Musila was willfully ignorant of the purpose of the truck ride that carried Worsfold’s remains to the makeshift dump, and that she was the only one at risk should the body be discovered.
“She was not a passive bystander,” he said.
The sentencing continues tomorrow at 10 a.m., when Worsfold’s family and friends will read victim impact statements.
