Appeal today for Chicago woman who plotted Halifax shopping mall massacre
HALIFAX — Nova Scotia’s top court will hear the appeal today of an American woman who plotted a Valentine’s Day shooting spree at a Halifax mall.
Lindsay Souvannarath was jailed in April last year after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit murder in a 2015 plan to shoot people at the Halifax Shopping Centre food court.
The 26-year-old woman has argued in provincial Appeal Court documents that her sentence of life imprisonment with no chance of parole for 10 years should be revised to a fixed sentence of 12 to 14 years.
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The Chicago-area woman has provided five grounds for appeal, including suggesting that the presiding judge committed an error by imposing a burden on her to prove she was remorseful and had renounced anti-social beliefs.
Souvannarath pleaded guilty in April 2017, about six months after Randall Shepherd — a Halifax man described in court as the “cheerleader” of the foiled shooting plot — was sentenced to a decade in jail.
A third alleged conspirator, 19-year-old James Gamble, was found dead in his Halifax-area home a day before the planned attack.
The conspiracy can be traced back to December 2014, when Souvannarath and Gamble began an online relationship.
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The Canadian Press