BABY JENNA'S KILLER TO BE RELEASED NEW YEARS DAY; BRENDA WAUDBY HAD BEEN CHARGED WITH THE CRIME AFTER DR. CHARLES SMITH BOTCHED THE TIME OF DEATH;

"The man who killed toddler Jenna Mellor will walk out of the Lindsay superjail on New Year’s Day, far too soon in the eyes of Jenna’s mother," Lois Tuffin reported in Peterborough This Week on December 12, 2008.

The story ran under the sub-heading , "Sentenced as a young offender, he served 22 months and will do another 11 months of house arrest";

“It’s so fast. It seems like he just went in,” Brenda Waudby says," the story continued;

"Jenna died on Jan. 21, 1997 after her teenaged babysitter beat and poked her for several hours, angry that his mother has volunteered him to work that night.

Ms Waudby was originally charged with second-degree murder, but those charges were dropped in 1999.

A second police investigation led to the arrest of the babysitter in December 2006 and his sentencing to 22 months in jail for manslaughter in March 2007.

His name cannot be published since he was charged under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

While he received the maximum sentence under the youth act for manslaughter, Ms Waudby believes he should have served a 25-year term for killing her daughter.

“If I had my way, he’d be doing life, none of this 22 months crap,” she says.
“He should have been sentenced as an adult.”

She is equally angry that his identity is protected by the courts and that he let her stand accused for nine years, during which time she was an outcast in Peterborough.

“He walked free and knew what he had done,” she says. “He was willing to let me go down for it. Now he’s going to be a free man again and nobody knows who he is...It’s so wrong.”

The man, now 26, will be under house arrest for a further 11 months.

His freedom will be very restricted during this time, says Barb Bird, a counselor with the John Howard Society.

“It’s still a form of punishment,” she adds.

The former prisoner would have to be in the company is his surety except for specific outings, such as counseling sessions or grocery shopping. A curfew is almost always a condition of house arrest.

“It’s very regimented,” she says.

The full list of conditions will be filed with the criminal court office when he is released, she says.

Ms Waudby has filed a multi-million-dollar civil suit against members of the Peterborough police and Dr. Charles Smith for what she calls a negligent investigation into Jenna’s death.

A pediatric pathologist, Dr. Smith pinpointed the time of Jenna’s death to when she was in Ms Waudby’s care. Other medical experts later countered that claim and said Jenna’s injuries were inflicted while she was in the care of a babysitter.

All these years later, Ms Waudby says she doesn’t know what she would do if she met her children’s former babysitter on the street.

“I hope I don’t, that's all.”"

Harold Levy...hlevy15@gmail.com;