The Class Project: How to Kill a Mother: The True Story of Canada's Infamous Bathtub Girls.

Julie Rekai Rickerd is a Toronto broadcaster and public relations
consultant.

The subject matter of this book—matricide—is repugnant at the best of times. Carried out by a pair of teenaged sisters, egged on by their classmates, it becomes positively gruesome.

Described as feeling trapped in a dysfunctional family life and unable to cope with their divorced, alcoholic mother, the girls attempt to curry favour with their friends by partying with them and emulating their likes and dislikes down to their mode of dress. They regularly drink and partake of drugs with them to fit in. Thinking that the death of their mother would render both her and their lives better, they hatch a plot to drug and inebriate her and put her out of her misery by drowning her in the bathtub. Never mind that the mother often worked three jobs to give them and their half brother a decent life.

The sisters carefully plan the details with the advice and encouragement of their friends. The friends even agree to provide an alibi for the girls for the time of the murder. Once called, the authorities all conclude that the mother’s death was an “alcohol-related accidental drowning.”

Had the sisters not told one friend too many about their crime they would have “gotten away with murder.” This was the only friend, among the many who knew about the killing, whose conscience made him call the police and reveal the truth about the circumstances of the mother’s death. The ensuing eight-week first-degree murder trial of the sisters “would rank among the most notorious in Canadian judicial history.”

Veteran Toronto Star newspaper reporter Bob Mitchell covered the trial from start to finish. He was also able to access firsthand information about the case from its investigators, Crown prosecutors, and defence attorneys. Mitchell not only recreates the trial as he himself witnessed it but scrupulously describes the lead-up to the crime and its commitment with a “chilling insider’s look into the minds of two cold-blooded killers and the dysfunctional world in which they lived.” He also provides an excellent comparison of the differences in juvenile laws and penalties in the Juvenile Delinquents Act (1908–1984), the Young Offenders Act (1984–2003), and the Youth Criminal Justice Act (2003–) as they would relate to each of the sisters.

An unfortunate distraction from this exemplary work is the annoying absence of copy editing and/or proofing. This book does not deserve such careless presentation.