# 44: Riverdale Star's Murder Confession Vlog

An episode of [Outlore with Eleanor Neale](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1682504024), 14 Sep 2023, 40 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO1722842691.mp3

Today's episode is on child star Ryan Grantham, best known for his roles in Riverdale, Diary of a Wimpy Kid & Supernatural, took a sharp turn when his acting roles dried out in early 2020. He fell into psychosis and began spending all his time alone in his bedroom planning mass murder. He was aiming big, hoping to assassinate the prime minister Justin Trudeau, but he would start small - in his own home, murdering his own mother. Trigger Warning: cancer, depression, suicidal ideation, psycosis, drug and alcohol abuse Resources: https://linktr.ee/usualdisclaimer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

## Transcript

[0:05] Hello everyone, and welcome to Usual Disclaimer with Eleanor
[0:09] Neil, a true crime podcast where we crack open some of the most
[0:12] notorious cases in history. Given the topics that we'll be
[0:16] investigating, it goes without saying that this show comes with
[0:20] a content warning. The details can get a bit heavy
[0:23] and you might find some of the themes we discuss triggering.
[0:26] Listener discretion is strongly advised and check the
[0:29] description for some resources and further information.
[0:38] Child star syndrome is a phenomenon that we're seeing all
[0:41] too much of in the 21st century. When children are pushed into
[0:44] the limelight at a young age, it often has catastrophic effects
[0:48] on them as they grow up. Some of them suffer terrible
[0:51] abuse from adults within the industry.
[0:53] Some develop severe mental health issues which they
[0:56] commonly treat with excessive drugs and alcohol, often leading
[1:00] to dependency and sometimes even death.
[1:03] We've seen it with the likes of Lindsay Lohan, Macaulay Culkin,
[1:07] Amanda Bynes, the subject of today's video, Ryan Grantham,
[1:12] who starred in some family favourites including Riverdale,
[1:15] Supernatural and Diary of a Wimpy Kid.
[1:17] But this video isn't about Ryan's achievements.
[1:20] Actually, this video is about what happened when those
[1:23] achievements stopped and Ryan began spiraling into madness.
[1:28] And now Ryan is known not for his acting work, but for being a
[1:33] cold blooded murderer. One last thing before we get
[1:36] into the case, I just want to give my usual claimer that I
[1:39] mean absolutely no disrespect to anyone that I talk about in this
[1:42] video. This video is for educational
[1:44] purposes and everything that I'm about to say is just publicly
[1:48] available information that myself and my team have found
[1:51] and have compiled into one big video.
[1:54] This video will cover especially sensitive topics including but
[1:58] not limited to cancer, depression, suicidal ideation,
[2:02] psychosis, and drug and alcohol abuse.
[2:05] While we make every effort to Fact Check our source and make
[2:09] sure that all of the information in this video is correct, no
[2:12] action should be taken in reliance upon the information in
[2:16] this video. And I want to take this
[2:17] opportunity to remind you all that these are real people's
[2:21] lives that we're talking about. So I urge you to keep the
[2:24] comments section respectful, kind.
[2:27] All opinions in this video are mine and mine alone.
[2:30] And with that being said, let's get into the case.
[2:33] So today's case takes place in Vancouver, Canada in 2020, right
[2:38] as the pandemic hit. But before we get to ahead of
[2:41] ourselves, let's introduce our child star Ryan Grantham, born
[2:45] on November 30th, 1998 to his doting mother Barbara White.
[2:50] Ryan was absolutely treasured by his family, as was his sister
[2:55] Lisa. When the kids were still very
[2:57] young, their father walked out, pretty much abandoned them and
[3:01] left Barbara to be a single mother to these two children.
[3:05] But she did the absolute best that she could and she loved
[3:09] watching her children grow up. She loved being a mum.
[3:12] At some point during the children's early years, Barbara
[3:15] was diagnosed with cancer, which she was then battling for the
[3:19] rest of her life. It was terrifying.
[3:21] It was a challenge, but for those that knew Barbara, they
[3:25] said that it it never changed her.
[3:27] Barbara had always been described as relentlessly
[3:30] positive, which I love. She had just a real lust for
[3:34] life. She seemed to be a very
[3:36] energetic, very fun loving person.
[3:39] She was especially outdoorsy. She liked biking, hiking,
[3:43] skiing. She would spend as much time out
[3:45] in nature and taking her children out in nature as she
[3:49] possibly could. Especially as she got older.
[3:52] She was still very, very active, but finding time to pursue her
[3:56] hobbies like hiking and hiking. It was quite hard for her
[4:00] because between battling literal cancer, having two children,
[4:05] being a single mother, also having a job to provide for her
[4:09] kids. On top of all of that, she was
[4:11] also caring for her own elderly mother.
[4:14] Barbara was a superhero, truly, and she always tried to be the
[4:19] absolute best, most supportive mother that she could.
[4:23] And so when Ryan was becoming like a pre 18, he started
[4:29] showing interest in acting because in Vancouver acting is
[4:32] quite a common hobby for children.
[4:34] Because Vancouver don't know if you guys knew this.
[4:37] I learnt this while researching this video.
[4:39] Vancouver is the second biggest place for like TV and movie
[4:43] production just before Hollywood.
[4:45] I didn't realize so much was going on in Vancouver.
[4:49] But yeah, Ryan showed an interest in acting.
[4:51] And so his mother supported him in that she took him to any and
[4:56] all auditions that he he could get his hands on.
[4:58] And sometimes they would be driving for hours.
[5:00] I mean, they didn't exactly live in Vancouver.
[5:03] They lived just outside of Vancouver and everything was
[5:05] going on inside Vancouver. So they would drive like hours
[5:09] to and from these auditions. She would put aside a lot of her
[5:12] own spare time to help make her son's dreams work.
[5:17] Ryan got his first role, actually at 9 years old in the
[5:21] 2007 movie called The Secret of The Nutcracker.
[5:24] It was like a made for TV cheesy Christmas movie.
[5:29] It wasn't exactly a blockbuster, but for a nine year old it was a
[5:33] pretty good like foot in the door role to get.
[5:36] Especially because Ryan Grantham looked younger than he actually
[5:40] was. Which is actually really good
[5:42] for child actors because it's a lot easier for directors to
[5:47] direct a nine year old that looks 6 rather than hire an
[5:51] actual 6 year old to try and learn lines and take directions.
[5:55] Ryan was always very short. He was 5 foot two at the time in
[5:58] this case when he was like 21 years old.
[6:01] So this first role in the Christmas film, I'm, I'm not
[6:03] going to say it put him on the map because it, it didn't
[6:06] really. But in terms of child acting
[6:10] roles, supporting child acting roles for like people that look
[6:14] young, I don't know it, it got his name out there to other
[6:18] casting directors. Like I say, it was a decent
[6:20] enough foot in the door over his acting career span.
[6:24] I think he was doing it for about 12 years.
[6:27] Ryan managed to rack up over 30 different roles, which is quite
[6:32] impressive. Although a lot of these roles
[6:34] would be like just one off episodes in different TV shows.
[6:38] He would just be like a guest character or whatever.
[6:41] But as he got older, the roles got a little bit more
[6:43] interesting. Some of these you might have
[6:45] actually seen him in. He was in Supernatural, he was
[6:48] in Diary of a Wimpy Kid, he was in Marley and Me the Puppy
[6:52] years, and most recently and most famously, he was in an
[6:56] episode of Riverdale in 2019. And even though he was only in
[7:00] one episode of Riverdale, it was a very important episode because
[7:05] so his character was called Jeffrey and the storyline was
[7:10] that his dad had killed Archie's dad.
[7:13] And for those of you that don't know, Archie's dad in the show
[7:16] was played by an actor named Luke Perry, who passed away of a
[7:20] stroke in real life in the middle of filming Riverdale.
[7:25] And so the writers had to come up with a way to to write out
[7:28] his death in in a natural and believable way.
[7:32] So even though Ryan was only in this one episode of Riverdale,
[7:35] it was a very important episode that everyone's eyes were on.
[7:38] Everyone wanted to see how Luke Perry's character was going to
[7:42] be written out of the show. And yeah, Ryan's character had a
[7:46] very big part in that storyline. I guess he hoped that being in
[7:50] Riverdale might propel his career forward, you know, get
[7:53] him, get him into that Netflix casting pool.
[7:56] But it didn't. His career kind of stalled a
[7:59] little bit after this, in part due to the pandemic, but also in
[8:03] part he just couldn't find a role.
[8:07] I know that 30 something roles does sound very impressive, but
[8:10] over the space of like 12 years, that's not that much.
[8:14] I mean, it's way more than I've ever had, but I don't mean this
[8:17] in a rude way. But he was still only getting
[8:19] these like small support in actor roles.
[8:21] Even at the age of 21. It doesn't look like his career
[8:25] was progressing very quickly and yeah, his roles were a little
[8:28] bit few and far between and Ryan was just having a generally kind
[8:32] of hard time at this point in his life anyway.
[8:35] I think a lot of people do in their late teens, early 20s.
[8:39] He was diagnosed with depression and I think anxiety as well.
[8:43] I don't believe he was put on any kind of medication for his
[8:47] depression or anxiety. Instead he decided to self
[8:50] medicate with alcohol and marijuana.
[8:53] He was going to university but like he wasn't at the same time.
[8:57] He was enrolled in university but he would very rarely go due
[9:02] to depression and anxiety. Well that was part of his excuse
[9:06] but people that knew him said that the weed and alcohol was
[9:10] more of a reason why he wasn't showing up at university.
[9:13] He would just be stunned all the damn time.
[9:16] He stopped showing up to his classes, His grades were
[9:20] slipping, and he just spent all of his time in his room at home
[9:25] just on his computer. He wasn't really going out and
[9:28] being social. In fact, the only times he
[9:30] really left his bedroom was to go get more alcohol and more
[9:33] weed. And it's around this time that
[9:36] he ended up dropping out of university.
[9:38] It's believed that his heavy use of these two substances, well,
[9:43] abuse of these two substances might have sent him into
[9:47] psychosis where he was starting to have suicidal thoughts and
[9:52] even homicidal thoughts. He started keeping a journal
[9:56] where he would get out all of these dark, disturbing thoughts
[10:01] that he was having, whether it was about harming himself,
[10:04] harming others, harming the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin
[10:09] Trudeau. That was for some reason
[10:11] something that he wrote about a lot.
[10:13] Apparently there were parts of this journal where he was
[10:15] talking about becoming a mass murderer or a serial killer.
[10:19] I couldn't, annoyingly couldn't find any like exact quotes from
[10:24] his own journals. It's all just kind of
[10:26] paraphrased in the sources that we found.
[10:29] So I really wonder what he was saying about becoming a mass
[10:32] murderer or a serial killer. But what is clear is that Ryan
[10:36] Grantham was having some seriously delusional and
[10:39] dangerous thoughts around this point in time, and I don't think
[10:43] anyone knew. He certainly didn't tell his
[10:45] mother. He loved his mother to pieces
[10:48] and never wanted to worry her or inconvenience her, so his mother
[10:52] certainly didn't know. I don't know if he had any
[10:54] friends that knew or anyone online that knew because I know
[10:57] he spent a lot of time online, but I don't know.
[10:59] I think most of it was concentrated in his own head and
[11:03] in that journal. I don't think this side of him
[11:05] was really leaking out much into the outside world.
[11:09] Ryan had never acted on any of the things that he wrote about.
[11:13] He wasn't a violent person. He wasn't a criminal.
[11:17] He'd never committed any crimes, even like petty crimes.
[11:20] He'd never attempted anything before, be it suicide, homicide,
[11:25] anything. He had never hurt anyone before.
[11:27] That was until March 31st, 2020. Ryan had completely given up on
[11:33] university at this point. I believe he dropped out.
[11:37] It's unclear whether he dropped out or whether he was kicked
[11:40] out. Umm, but he wasn't going to
[11:42] university anymore. His mental health was now at an
[11:45] all time low. He would just stay at home and
[11:48] and drink and smoke weed 24/7 which is not good for brain
[11:54] function. He'd been suppressing these
[11:56] homicidal urges that had been building up inside him for quite
[12:00] some time. But it it was for some reason in
[12:03] March 2020, something inside him snapped and Ryan Grantham
[12:08] decided that it was time to commit murder.
[12:11] But he wasn't going to kill just anyone.
[12:13] Ryan had a specific target in mind.
[12:16] He was going to aim big and attempt to assassinate Prime
[12:20] Minister Justin Trudeau. I think the main reason for this
[12:23] being it wasn't like he had like a specific hatred of Justin
[12:27] Trudeau or anything. I think the reason for this was
[12:30] that he wanted to make a big if he was going to kill someone, he
[12:34] might as well kill the most powerful and important person in
[12:37] Canada. And Ryan knew that a crime this
[12:40] big would have serious repercussions of, obviously for
[12:44] himself. He knew that, but also for the
[12:46] people around him. Even if he was killed by the
[12:49] police at the scene or thrown in prison for the rest of his life,
[12:52] he knew that the people that he left behind, his family mainly,
[12:57] were going to be suffering because of his actions forever.
[13:00] They were always going to be the family of the assassin, and he
[13:04] didn't want that for them. He didn't want that for his
[13:06] mother, who he claimed to love dearly.
[13:09] He loved her more than anything, and he didn't want her to live
[13:13] on knowing that her son was a murderer and have to deal with
[13:17] the consequences of raising a murderer.
[13:21] He just knew that her finding this out would just completely
[13:24] crush her and he didn't want her to find out.
[13:28] So on that day, March 31st, by this point, the pandemic had
[13:32] well and truly hit. Most people were locked inside
[13:35] their houses with their families, and that included Ryan
[13:39] and Barbara. He knew that today was the day
[13:42] he was going to act. I believe from when he woke up,
[13:45] he knew that today was the day. He spent most of the first half
[13:49] of the day just sitting at their kitchen table, loading and
[13:53] unloading his rifle, almost like a a nervous fidget.
[13:57] You know how like, I don't know, I bounce my leg whenever I'm
[14:00] anxious. I imagine it was kind of like
[14:02] that. And his mum knew that he had
[14:04] this gun, he was known to like collect and play with rifles.
[14:09] So it wasn't unusual to see him playing with a rifle at the
[14:13] kitchen table. He eventually set the gun down,
[14:16] I think it was unloaded at this point, and just left it on the
[14:19] table and went outside of their house and just sat on their
[14:22] front stairs for about 15 minutes, just in silence, just
[14:26] thinking about what he was about to do.
[14:29] Then when he stood up, 15 minutes later, he went back
[14:33] inside the house, picked up his gun again, and that was when he
[14:36] heard his mother playing the piano in the living room.
[14:39] He loaded the gun one last time and then followed the sound of
[14:44] the music until he was standing in the doorway of their living
[14:48] room watching his mother play the piano.
[14:51] And this was a tune that she'd played often.
[14:53] She was a really good piano player.
[14:55] She loved to just sit there and go away with the music.
[14:59] Ryan stood and watched her for a moment.
[15:02] And then he lifted the rifle, lined up the crosshairs with the
[15:06] back of her head. And then with a deep breath, he
[15:09] pulled the trigger. And he murdered his mother in
[15:13] the house that they shared together.
[15:14] Barbara Waite was 64 years old when she died from that one
[15:18] gunshot wound to the head. She'd done nothing but love and
[15:22] support both of her children all her life.
[15:25] And that's exactly why Ryan felt like he had to kill her, because
[15:29] he knew that he had turned bad and he didn't want his mother to
[15:34] be alive to see just how bad he was about to turn.
[15:38] After fatally shooting his mother, Ryan Grantham then pulls
[15:42] out a GoPro camera and starts to film a vlog.
[15:47] Like a confession almost. He even showed his his mother's
[15:51] body laying slumped against the piano, blood everywhere.
[15:55] In the video, he said I shot her in the back of the head in the
[15:58] moments after she would have known it was me.
[16:01] From what Ryan says there, it seems as though he believes that
[16:05] Barbara didn't die instantly. There must have been some time
[16:08] between the gun discharging and her actually seeming dead for
[16:14] him to think that there was a window of time where she got
[16:18] shot and then realized it was her son that was the one that
[16:22] did it. Which if that's true, that is so
[16:25] heartbreaking to, to know in your final seconds that it was
[16:29] your son that did this to you. But also I, I don't quite know
[16:34] if that will have been the case because like I said, Ryan was
[16:37] not a violent person. He, his mother loved him dearly
[16:40] and he loved his mother dearly. This all seemed to come out of
[16:44] nowhere as soon as Ryan started suffering with psychosis.
[16:48] So really, in that moment when she was shot in the back of the
[16:51] head, would she have assumed it was her son?
[16:54] She had a back to him. She she didn't see anything.
[16:57] And of course, I don't want to insert myself into this story,
[17:00] but I was just thinking as I was researching this, that if that
[17:03] was me, my brain probably wouldn't have gone to my only
[17:08] son has betrayed me. My brain would probably go to
[17:11] we've been broken into. There's an intruder that has
[17:13] shot me and they might also get my son.
[17:16] Of course, no one knows what Barbara was thinking in that
[17:19] moment, if she was thinking anything, if there was any time
[17:23] for her to have even thought anything.
[17:24] Ryan shut off the GoPro camera and spent the rest of the day
[17:28] just in the house with his mother's dead body laying
[17:32] slumped there at the piano. He didn't move her, he just got
[17:35] severely drunk and high, and in between watching Netflix, he
[17:40] spent the next 24 hours planning his next moves.
[17:44] One of the first things he did was see to his mother's body.
[17:48] But like I say, he didn't move her at all.
[17:50] He just went and grabbed a white sheet and draped it over her in
[17:54] the piano. And then he went and got a bunch
[17:56] of candles and sat them all on the piano around her and lit
[18:00] them all, almost as if it was like some sort of shrine, like a
[18:04] place of rest. He even placed some rosary beads
[18:08] in front of her on the piano. And I find it very interesting
[18:11] and very disturbing how much respect he seems to have for her
[18:16] after just killing her that night.
[18:19] Ryan Grantham wrote his final journal entry that read.
[18:23] I'm so sorry mum. I'm so sorry Lisa.
[18:26] I hate myself. There's a lot of media of me out
[18:29] there, film and TV, hundreds of hours of me that can be viewed
[18:33] and dissected. No one will understand.
[18:36] He then spent the rest of his evening making a bunch of
[18:38] Molotov cocktails, which is a glass bottle with a flammable
[18:43] liquid in it, usually like petrol, gasoline.
[18:45] And then in the top it has like a Wick or a rope or like some
[18:50] piece of cloth that you can light.
[18:52] And then someone throws the bottle and then when it smashes
[18:56] and hits the ground, all of that flammable liquid gets lit by the
[19:00] Wick. I don't know what his intentions
[19:02] were specifically with these Molotov cocktails.
[19:04] He made twelve of them. I don't know what he was
[19:07] planning to do with them. He then set about packing up the
[19:09] family car to embark on the next leg of his journey.
[19:13] The journey to kill the Prime Minister.
[19:16] He loaded in three guns, 12 Molotov cocktails that he made
[19:20] the night before, a bunch of camping supplies, and enough
[19:23] ammo to trigger a small war. Apparently, he knew exactly
[19:27] where to go to find Justin Trudeau, his next victim.
[19:31] It was public knowledge that he and all of his family lived in
[19:35] Pride or Predo Cottage in Ottawa.
[19:38] Now if you're familiar with Canadian geography, you might
[19:41] have already spotted that Ottawa is on the complete the other
[19:44] side of the country to Ryan who was in Vancouver 4500 kilometers
[19:50] between him and just Intruder 3000 miles.
[19:53] That would be a 50 hour drive over 2 days of driving.
[19:57] But I don't know. Ryan had planned it.
[20:01] He decided that he was up for it and so he was on his way.
[20:05] He drove for a good few hours over 100 miles.
[20:08] But it was at this point where he started to get some doubts
[20:13] about the whole thing, about his whole plan.
[20:15] I guess he was just now realizing how long this drive
[20:18] was and he had a lot of time alone with his thoughts and.
[20:24] I don't know. He seemed to be coming to his
[20:25] senses in a way that killing the Prime Minister is is not
[20:29] possible. He has a bunch of security, it's
[20:32] 50 hours away in the car. All of this was kind of coming
[20:36] to him at this point and he realised it wasn't a feasible
[20:39] plan. So now Ryan has decided that
[20:48] killing Justin Trudeau is out of the question.
[20:51] But he is still in this frame of mind where he still wants to do
[20:54] something. He still wants to cause
[20:57] destruction and harm in some way.
[21:00] So he starts to come up with some other plans.
[21:02] He thought that he could drive to the Lionsgate Bridge in
[21:05] Vancouver, which has like, you know, like the metal structure
[21:09] above it. And he thought he could drive
[21:11] there, park up his car on the bridge, and then climb the metal
[21:14] structure with all of his weapons on him somehow. 12
[21:18] Molotov cocktails, a gun, a bunch of ammo.
[21:21] He was going to climb up this metal structure, station
[21:24] himself, and then just start killing the people below,
[21:28] throwing these Molotov cocktails and then shooting any survivors
[21:33] of the bombs. But after a good amount of time
[21:35] of thinking that plan through, for some reason he decided to
[21:39] not go through with that either. And so he reverted to Plan C
[21:43] now, which was to go and shoot up his university, Simon Fraser
[21:48] University in Vancouver. Ryan obviously held a lot of
[21:51] resentment for his uni. I don't know if they kicked him
[21:55] out. I don't know if he left, but he
[21:57] was certainly getting into a lot of trouble while he was enrolled
[22:00] there for not showing up to his classes.
[22:02] His professors will have been getting on at him.
[22:04] And yeah, university to him was just a very negative feeling in
[22:09] his life. And so he decided that that was
[22:13] his next plan of attack. So he swung the car around and
[22:16] started making that 100 mile journey all the way back to
[22:20] Vancouver. But on the way there, Ryan
[22:23] Grantham did something unexpected.
[22:25] He pulled into a local police station and he just parked his
[22:29] car in the car park. For a while he was just sitting
[22:33] there, thinking, contemplating in the police station car park.
[22:37] He was weighing up his options right now, which he saw as
[22:41] either continue killing, go out and commit a mass murder, you
[22:44] know, do what the original plan was wherever he ends up and
[22:48] cause destruction. That was what he set out to do
[22:51] that day. Or he now had another option in
[22:54] his mind. He could just kill himself and
[22:57] then all of this would be over. Ryan couldn't stop thinking
[23:00] about the murder that he had already committed of his loving
[23:04] mother, Barbara, who had done nothing but love and adore him
[23:08] all his life. The reason he had killed her was
[23:10] because he planned to go on and kill more people, and he didn't
[23:14] want his mother to see that. But now it seems that he was
[23:18] chickening out on the rest of the plan.
[23:21] He had already killed his mother.
[23:22] What? For no reason now his old logic
[23:26] no longer held up. So now he felt as though he had
[23:29] murdered his wonderful, beautiful mother for no reason,
[23:34] and he was so angry at himself. He felt he had made a grave
[23:38] mistake, the worst mistake he had ever made in his entire
[23:42] life. He said that he had this one
[23:44] thought just repeating in his head over and over again.
[23:47] I, I took from the world a beautiful life.
[23:49] So I owe the world a life. He felt he deserved to die
[23:54] because he had killed his mother.
[23:56] And he got quite close to it. He was even lifting the gun to
[24:00] his head. He, he was really considering
[24:02] going through with it. But it was around this time that
[24:05] he spotted a police officer walking across the car park.
[24:09] And it seemed that in that moment, Ryan's decision was made
[24:12] for him. He put the gun down, got out of
[24:15] his car, walked up to this officer and just said I killed
[24:19] my mother. Apparently his delivery of these
[24:22] 4 words to this police officer was just very blank, very cold,
[24:27] very matter of fact. He wasn't crying.
[24:29] There was no remorse. It didn't seem like there was
[24:32] any major regret there. Some people think that that's
[24:36] because there was no remorse or regret in him whatsoever, but I
[24:40] think it could have also been down to the fact that he'd, he'd
[24:43] already kind of emotionally processed everything while he
[24:46] was sat in that car. Not completely, but you know,
[24:50] he'd, he'd already been so angry at himself and so upset at
[24:53] himself for killing his mother that now he, he felt he had to
[24:57] be called to deal with the reality of his actions.
[25:02] And in the face of the police, he had to be more put together.
[25:06] So Vancouver police took Ryan Grantham into the station.
[25:10] But as all of this was going on, Ryan's sister Lisa was on her
[25:15] way to her mother's house to go and check on her.
[25:18] She hadn't heard from her all day.
[25:20] And usually they were in contact every single day, especially
[25:23] during the pandemic. And knowing that her Mother
[25:26] Mother was sick and struggling with her cancer, she decided to
[25:30] just go straight to the house to go and make sure that she was
[25:33] OK. When she arrived, Lisa let
[25:36] herself into the house using her own key and there she was, the
[25:40] one to discover her own mother's murder scene.
[25:43] What she saw when she walked into the living room was this
[25:47] big white sheet draped over the piano and clearly draped over
[25:52] something else on the piano seat, and she immediately knew
[25:56] what that was. There was a big patch of blood
[25:59] on the white sheet. There were candles scattered
[26:02] around on the piano, still lit but pretty much melted down to
[26:06] nothing. Lisa was horrified at the sight
[26:08] of this. She called for the police who
[26:11] came down and they took the sheet off and they discovered
[26:14] that this was her mother, Barbara.
[26:17] And it was at this point that Lisa said, well, I've got a
[26:19] brother too. My, my little brother Ryan also
[26:21] lives here. And he wasn't in the house.
[26:24] He was nowhere to be seen. And once police found out that
[26:27] fact that this mother had been found murdered but surrounded
[26:32] with candles and rosary beads and her own son is missing, they
[26:37] kind of already knew what must have happened here.
[26:40] This wasn't a robbery gone wrong.
[26:41] This wasn't, you know, like a sexually motivated murder,
[26:46] anything like that. Whoever had murdered her had
[26:49] felt bad about it, it seemed. It was clear that whoever did
[26:53] kill her wanted to show some level of respect in the
[26:57] aftermath of it. And that's why they'd covered
[26:59] her body. That's why they, you know,
[27:01] placed rosary beads by her. It's all just a weirdly tender
[27:06] way to to dress and to leave a murder victim.
[27:10] And so that told police that it it must have been a son.
[27:14] It must have been her missing son.
[27:16] There were a bunch of other things that also pointed to
[27:19] this. I mean, there were no signs of
[27:21] forced entry in the house. Ryan Grantham was known to
[27:24] collect guns. He loved guns.
[27:27] And he was the only other person living in that house with her.
[27:30] So police started to search the crime scene, the house in
[27:34] general, specifically Ryan's bedroom.
[27:37] And there they found the journal and the GoPro.
[27:40] We've already talked about a bunch of the incriminating
[27:43] evidence on on those two things, but there are a couple more
[27:45] things that police came to discover on that GoPro memory
[27:49] card. There wasn't just his confession
[27:52] vlog that he filmed and then filmed his mother's dead body.
[27:56] There were actually a few more clips before that that seemed to
[28:00] kind of show the same thing. A few clips of Ryan walking with
[28:05] the GoPro and his rifle walking the route of the house to the
[28:10] living room door, and then the clips would end.
[28:14] Police theorized that this was Ryan practicing doing practice
[28:19] runs of his mother's murder, making sure that he could get
[28:23] through the house quietly with his gun and things like that.
[28:25] I couldn't find when these other clips were filmed.
[28:29] I don't know if they were filmed maybe that same morning when he
[28:32] woke up and he decided today was the day.
[28:34] He did a few practice runs before going through with it, or
[28:38] annoyingly I couldn't find when they were done because what if
[28:41] they were done like a month beforehand or in the weeks
[28:44] running up to? I mean, that really shows a
[28:46] different level of premeditation.
[28:48] Either way, it shows premeditation.
[28:50] But could you imagine if those clips had been from a
[28:53] significant amount of time before the police that responded
[28:56] to the crime scene sent out a bunch of alerts for Ryan
[28:58] Grantham, not knowing that he had actually already given
[29:02] himself up to Vancouver police? He was already in police custody
[29:06] at this point. He was actually already being in
[29:08] interviewed by the police, and because he'd given himself up,
[29:11] he was just confessing everything, every detail of
[29:14] everything that he'd done. He had no reason to hold
[29:17] anything back at this point. He confessed that he had killed
[29:20] his mother that day because he felt like a huge disappointment
[29:24] to her in so many different ways.
[29:26] He was dependent on a bunch of substances to the point where
[29:30] he'd gotten himself kicked out or dropped out of university,
[29:33] ruined his education. He knew that his university
[29:37] failure had really upset his mum and it really upset him to know
[29:41] that he'd upset her. But of course we know that
[29:44] wasn't the only reason he wanted to kill Barbara.
[29:47] Now he had to admit to the police his greater plan for that
[29:51] day, which was that he was actually planning to assassinate
[29:54] the Prime Minister. And that was why he felt he had
[29:58] to kill his mother, because he didn't want his mother to be
[30:02] alive when her son became a murderer, an assassin.
[30:05] He just thought it would be better to put her out of her
[30:09] misery before that even happened, before she was even in
[30:13] misery. That was how he personally
[30:16] justified murdering his mother, and it it makes sense given the
[30:20] way that her body was left. He said that he wanted to do
[30:24] something for her because he robbed her of everything.
[30:26] On a search of Ryan's laptop, they got a little insight into
[30:30] what he would do online. You know, when he'd like lock
[30:33] himself in his bedroom. Drunk and high.
[30:36] He was more often than not on the dark web, not just the
[30:39] regular web that me and you go on.
[30:41] He was on the dark web watching graphic violent videos and I
[30:46] couldn't find exactly what that meant.
[30:47] That was the only way that these sources would refer to what he
[30:51] watched. So maybe it's for the best.
[30:54] I don't know how graphic or violent these videos were or in
[30:58] what way that even freaks me out.
[31:00] We don't know what kind of graphic.
[31:03] You know, just imagining what Ryan Grantham's life looked like
[31:07] in the last few months of freedom that he had.
[31:10] He was just always locked in this bedroom in in a world of
[31:14] such dark and disturbing content.
[31:18] Like he was watching all these things on the dark web, don't
[31:21] know what they were. But when he wasn't watching
[31:23] those, he was writing in his diary about how he wants to be a
[31:27] serial killer or kill Justin Trudeau or kill himself.
[31:31] Like his whole world was just darkness.
[31:35] He was intoxicated all the time. He felt like he had no prospects
[31:40] in life because he'd just dropped out of university, and
[31:43] the acting roles were drying up, especially because of the
[31:46] pandemic. And on top of that, he was
[31:48] falling deeper and deeper into psychosis.
[31:51] After his confession, of course, Ryan was not allowed out on
[31:55] bail. He was kept in police custody,
[31:57] and they brought in a couple of psychiatrists to evaluate him, a
[32:01] couple as well, because they wanted multiple opinions on
[32:03] this. Both of them came to the same
[32:05] conclusion, that Ryan was suffering with a substance abuse
[32:09] disorder and a mood disorder, which I couldn't find for the
[32:13] life of me what that mood disorder was.
[32:16] I presume it was depression or some very like severe form of
[32:20] depression. Ryan's mental state was
[32:22] described by these professionals as unstable and fragile.
[32:26] It was also noted by them that Ryan's attempt to self medicate
[32:30] his mental illnesses or mental problems with drugs and alcohol
[32:35] had only made the situation even worse for him.
[32:38] He'd started heavily using these substances when he was still in
[32:41] his mid teens, when his brain was still developing, still
[32:46] forming. Of course that in itself doesn't
[32:48] lead anyone to become a murderer, but I think when all
[32:51] of these factors are combined, it certainly wouldn't have
[32:56] helped when he's already in such a fragile mental state.
[32:59] He's depressed, he's having all these dark thoughts, consuming
[33:02] all this dark content. Plus his brain just wasn't
[33:06] formed properly. His decision making was
[33:09] impaired, you know, from a very early age because he hadn't
[33:13] allowed his actual brain to grow.
[33:16] It's believed that his regular viewing of dark content on the
[33:21] dark web had really desensitized him to violence and aggression
[33:24] and and pain and death. It was very normalized to him in
[33:28] his day-to-day life since he was witnessing it every day through
[33:33] a screen that that is believed to have made him think, oh, I
[33:37] could do that, you know? But even though both
[33:39] psychiatrists agreed that Ryan was very mentally unwell, they
[33:43] also agreed that he was still capable of making decisions.
[33:47] He decided to kill his mother that day.
[33:49] It wasn't his mental illness that made him do it.
[33:52] He decided to kill his mother that day.
[33:54] He was criminally responsible. And so the idea of the insanity
[33:59] plea was completely out of the window.
[34:01] June 13th, 2022, after serving two years in police custody
[34:05] throughout the pandemic, obviously everything was
[34:08] delayed. Ryan Grantham finally plead
[34:11] guilty to 2nd degree murder. I believe it was second degree
[34:14] murder. I think his defence team really
[34:17] tried to argue that he had shown remorse.
[34:20] He'd given himself up to the police before he could do
[34:22] anything else. Like I think they tried to say
[34:25] he was clearly in some sort of psychosis, a very dangerous
[34:28] mental state, but he still managed to put an end to it by
[34:32] taking himself to the police. And I believe that's why he was
[34:36] given second degree rather than first degree, which is what he
[34:39] probably should have got. But you know, in the court
[34:42] trial, the GoPro footage of his mother's dead body was of course
[34:46] shown and he couldn't watch it. He refused to watch it.
[34:51] He just sat there with his head in his hands.
[34:53] So like I said, he pled guilty to 2nd degree murder.
[34:56] And in Canada, second degree murder is an automatic life
[34:59] sentence. So that's what got the judge
[35:02] decided that Ryan would be eligible for parole after 14
[35:06] years. Now that decision was made again
[35:09] because he seemed to show remorse and he put a stop to it
[35:12] himself. He didn't try to cover anything
[35:14] up. You know, all those factors led
[35:17] to him having quite a low parole time.
[35:20] Another thing that really went in his favour was that he was
[35:23] actively really trying to work on his mental health whilst he
[35:26] was in police custody for those two years running up to his
[35:29] trial. He knew that all of it was his
[35:32] own fault, like he killed his mother, like he has put all his
[35:36] family through such trauma. And he knew that it was all down
[35:40] to him and his actions and his thoughts and the way that his
[35:43] brain had worked. So he was really trying to to
[35:47] fix that. And the judge on his trial
[35:49] really did want to believe that there could come a day when Ryan
[35:52] Grantham is safe and could go out in the world again.
[35:57] But who knows? Ryan stood up in court and gave
[36:00] a closing statement after he'd been sentenced.
[36:03] And this closing statement had some interesting quotes.
[36:06] I've just kind of pulled a few out and I'll read them for you,
[36:08] He said. In the face of something so
[36:10] horrible, saying sorry seems so pointless.
[36:13] But from every fibre of my being, I am sorry.
[36:16] I cared about her more than anything in the world.
[36:19] My mother was a caring, compassionate, loving person.
[36:22] She did nothing to deserve what I did to her in the aftermath of
[36:26] this case. Lily Earnhardt from Riverdale,
[36:29] who plays Betty, actually responded to like this story
[36:33] when it broke on the news because obviously Ryan is often
[36:36] referred to as the Riverdale killer.
[36:38] You know, this actor from Riverdale that killed his mom
[36:40] and Lily actually publicly said, we do not claim him.
[36:44] Thank you. Which actually, I bet that's
[36:46] really scary for everyone that's ever worked with Ryan to look
[36:49] back on their time, like on set with him or whatever, just
[36:53] knowing that that level of violence and depravity is laying
[36:58] dormant in someone the whole time.
[37:00] And you had no idea. Like he was just a ticking time
[37:03] bomb waiting to murder his own mother and maybe the Prime
[37:06] Minister and maybe a bunch of other people.
[37:09] Had he not kind of snapped out of it and taken himself to the
[37:12] police station. Ryan Grantham is currently being
[37:14] held in a prison slash mental health facility.
[37:19] It was deemed that he wouldn't be sent to like a normal prison
[37:23] and be lumped in with all the other men because they thought
[37:25] he would be a target of abuse on many different levels.
[37:29] As we mentioned earlier, Ryan was very short.
[37:33] He was 5 foot two. He looked young for his age.
[37:36] He was very like skinny framed, not very strong.
[37:40] They thought that he would be a prime target for all kinds of
[37:43] abuse, but mainly sexual abuse. If he was to be put in a prison
[37:47] with a bunch of older, larger, stronger men, he would have had
[37:53] a terrible, terrible time in there.
[37:55] So for his own safety, he is serving his sentence quite
[37:59] privately. He has like a room on his own,
[38:02] which I guess could be seen as a perk, but whatever.
[38:05] Ryan Grantham will be eligible for parole in 2036, which I'm
[38:10] not going to lie, I have quite a bad feeling about this one.
[38:13] Like he, I think he's going to get let out.
[38:15] I think he's going to be able to prove somehow that he is
[38:19] rehabilitated and that he's different now.
[38:22] But just the thought that he was such a normal kid before this
[38:27] happened. There were no warning signs that
[38:29] he was thinking these things or watching these things online or
[38:33] planning these things. No one knew.
[38:36] It literally all just blew up one day when he murdered his
[38:39] mother. And who's to say that's not
[38:41] going to happen again? Although of course, we should be
[38:43] trying to rehabilitate criminals.
[38:45] It's just, it's just scary when it comes to the part where you
[38:48] need to trust them to be rehabilitated.
[38:51] You know you need to trust them to make good decisions from that
[38:53] point on and not go back to their old ways.
[39:01] Thank you so much for listening to Usual Disclaimer.
[39:03] At this point, I just want to say that if you've been affected
[39:06] by any of the topics we discussed today, please check
[39:09] the description where we've left some helpful resources.
[39:12] If you want to hear more cases like this one, make sure to
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[39:21] And if you really enjoyed, I'd love it if you could leave a
[39:23] rating and a review too. Usual Disclaimer with Eleanor
[39:27] Neil is an Audio Boom Studios production.
[39:30] See you next time.

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