‘Obscene brutality’: Baseball-bat killer gets life term despite constitutional ruling

The B.C. Supreme Court has sentenced a man to life in prison without parole eligibility for 25 years for beating his ex-girlfriend to death with a baseball bat as she slept beside her young daughter in 2021.

The court ruling posted Monday says Luciano Mariani’s killing of Caroline Bernard in her home in Bowser, B.C., was a crime of “obscene brutality” that was planned in advance for months.

Mariani had pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, but filed a successful constitutional challenge against a provision in Canada’s Criminal Code preventing those convicted of the crime from applying for parole for 25 years.