Does the ‘bathtub girl’ killer deserve a second chance?

“Whether or not you think I deserve to breathe does not change the fact that I served my time,” one of the so-called “bathtub girls” tells the Star in her first public comments since her trial.

It’s a case that raises big questions about the system used to prosecute youth in Canada: Should their past follow them for the rest of their lives? Or do we accept that young people found guilty of crimes — even murder — be given a clean slate?

It’s one of the most infamous crimes in recent Canadian history.

Two teenage girls murdered their mother in 2003 by drowning her in the bathtub of their Mississauga home. They were called “the bathtub girls” and became the focus of intense media scrutiny and public outrage: a book, play, and movie were made about their lives.

The younger sister, 15 at the time, became known to the public as “Beth,” an alias created by late Toronto Star reporter Bob Mitchell. The pair plied their mother with alcohol and pills; Beth stood by as her sister held their mom’s head under water.

But Beth’s story doesn’t end with the shocking crime. She served her sentence, graduated from law school, passed the bar exams and completed her articling requirements. She never got into trouble with the law again. She became a mother. And now, she is facing what is undoubtedly her greatest challenge since her sensational trial 20 years ago: She wants to be allowed to practise as an Ontario lawyer.

In many ways, Beth’s life story illustrates exactly the goal of the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA): to rehabilitate youth who have committed crimes so that they can become productive members of society. That law is also the reason why Beth’s identity, along with her mother’s and her sister’s, can never be revealed.

Her case for a law licence is unprecedented for the province’s legal regulator, the Law Society of Ontario (LSO), and raises big questions about the system used to prosecute youth in Canada: Should their past follow them for the rest of their lives? Or do we accept that young people found guilty of crimes — even murder — be given a clean slate?

These questions are at the heart of Beth’s attempt at becoming a lawyer. The regulator is pushing to use her youth records at a hearing before the Law Society Tribunal to determine whether she’s of “good character” to be called to the bar. The regulator says those records are a “significant part” of its case, arguing the need to assess Beth’s character is “heightened” by the fact she committed murder.

If the independent tribunal finds that she’s not of good character, she will be blocked in her bid for a licence and more than a decade’s worth of work to turn her life around will be all for naught.

Beth is urging the tribunal to toss the regulator’s case and allow her to practise now, pointing out it’s been almost 10 years since she first applied for a licence. Emboldened by a recent court decision that terminated the Law Society’s access to her youth records — which the regulator is appealing — she says the Law Society has no right to use her mother’s murder against her when the file has already been sealed.

“Whether or not you think I deserve to breathe does not change the fact that I served my time and, arguably, much more,” Beth said in an exclusive statement to the Star, speaking publicly about her case for the first time since trial.

“Either people with a youth sentence deserve a second chance, or we get rid of the YCJA and stop pretending that we care about second chances.”

Depleted of her resources, she’s representing herself both in the Law Society Tribunal proceedings and in Superior Court, where the regulator is seeking a review of last year’s lower-court decision that found the Law Society can’t rely on the youth records.

Ontario Court Justice Bruce Duncan concluded last August that the YCJA is clear: Unlike in adult cases, findings of guilt cease to have any effect once the young person has served their sentence, with a few exceptions, none of which apply to Beth. It’s as if the crime never happened, the judge said.

Now semi-retired, Duncan is also the judge who presided over the sisters’ trial and found them guilty.

“It is my view that neither the conviction itself nor evidence of the crime to which the conviction relates can be used by the (Law Society) for the intended purpose or considered by the tribunal,” Duncan wrote in his decision last August.

“Effective rehabilitation and reintegration require that young persons be given an opportunity to move on with their life.”

He also emphasized that no other organization has had a window into youth records when vetting applicants — “As far as I am aware, there has been no reported harm or even outcry arising from this restriction.”

Beth told the Star she’s staying in the fight because she’s concerned about the precedent the case could set. She said she can’t allow the LSO to “trample the YCJA ... using me as a trigger,” wondering how much money this legal battle is costing the regulator and expressing concern about the “chilling effect” it could have on other people in her situation.

“I thought about giving up, and then realized my son, and the world, is watching,” she said.

“There is no turning back now.”

The Crown contended at the sisters’ trial that they conspired to kill their mother because she was an alcoholic and neglectful, and because they stood to gain a share of her $200,000 life insurance policy. They almost got away with it, until a friend reported them a year later. Duncan said the crime had been carried out with “chilling detachment,” and without a “flicker of moral compunction,” when he handed down a 10-year sentence in June 2006, the maximum youth sentence for first-degree murder.

“My mom’s death was the product of greed, pain and ignorance,” Beth wrote in a letter to Duncan ahead of her sentencing. “There is no justice for what I’ve done. No matter how much I say I’m sorry, it won’t bring my mother back. To me, that is the worst punishment that I will never be able to escape.”

She wouldn’t be able to change the past, she told the judge.

“The only thing I can do every day is to help as many people as possible.”

It’s that desire to help people that steered her toward a career in law. Two decades after her sentencing, she wrote in her Law Society Tribunal affidavit that she “needed to become a lawyer to have the required income to escape” an abusive marriage, at a time when she was still a student with an infant son.

While her older sister, known as “Sandra” in Mitchell’s reporting, has spoken publicly before, Beth has stayed silent until now.

“While I normally avoid speaking with media, I feel pressed against a wall,” she said in her statement to the Star.

“I am in an impossible position: I do not have the resources as a single mother to keep fighting LSO all the way to the Supreme Court, but I cannot afford to restart and craft an entirely new career for myself and my son.”

Her battle with the Law Society began with a question she should have never been asked.

It was 2016 and she was applying for a licence to practise law. The form asked her if she had a criminal record, and added the instruction: “Answer ‘no’ if under the Young Offenders Act or YCJA you were found guilty of an indictable offence and it has been five years since all dispositions in respect of the offence were made or completed.”

It had only been two years since she’d completed her sentence, so she answered: “Yes.”

She initially consented to the Law Society accessing her records, but last year she asked Duncan to terminate that access after objecting to how the Law Society was carrying out its investigation. She said the Law Society’s investigators had disclosed her identity and guilty finding to witnesses and asked “leading and inappropriate questions designed to elicit bad-character answers.”

In his decision, Duncan found that the Law Society’s question on the application form was “misleading and unlawful.” He said Beth’s guilty finding ceased to have any effect as soon as she completed her sentence in December 2014 — about a year early due to good behaviour — and “there was no further five-year period that had to elapse before the correct answer was ‘no.’”

A still from the 2014 movie “Perfect Sisters,” based on the 2003 murder. Beth says Law Society investigators asked witnesses for their thoughts on the film.

In materials filed this year with the Law Society Tribunal, Beth said investigators asked witnesses “dozens of gossipy and egregious questions,” including their thoughts about “Perfect Sisters,” the 2014 movie based on the murder, starring Abigail Breslin and Georgie Henley.

“I provided consent for LSO to access YCJA records, NOT consent for LSO to question all of my colleagues, friends and family with irrelevant and gossipy questions designed to instill a sense of dislike and mistrust in me, and that have no bearing on my character or ability to practise law,” she wrote in an affidavit.

She stated that the records alone should have been sufficient for the regulator to come to a decision about her licensing, a position Duncan appeared to endorse last year during arguments on terminating the Law Society’s access.

“Surely you take the record at face value, and there’s probably never been a conviction or finding of guilt that’s backed up by more material than in this case,” Duncan said to the Law Society’s lawyer, according to a court transcript.

Why launch an investigation that only stirs “prejudicial pots” in the community, the judge asked.

When the lawyer responded that the Law Society’s investigators are just trying to get the best evidence on an individual’s character, the judge shot back: “Yeah, go out and interview some classmates from a decade ago.”

Beth will face off against the Law Society twice next month. The Law Society Tribunal will hear her motion to toss the good-character case for delay and abuse of process, which would pave the way for her to be licensed now, while the Superior Court will hear the Law Society’s application to review Duncan’s decision finding it can’t use the youth records.

The youth records “are a significant part” of what is a “unique and complex matter,” the regulator said in filings this month with the tribunal. In them, the Law Society argues Beth’s motion to toss the good-character case is premature until higher courts have weighed in on Duncan’s ruling. They ask for her motion to be dismissed, with costs awarded to the regulator.

“The Law Society has a mandate to protect the public, regulate the profession, and maintain public confidence in the profession,” wrote Law Society lawyers Nadia Musclow and Tushar Pain in the filings.

Assessing an applicant’s character serves those objectives, the lawyers stated. In this case, they argued, the need “is heightened where concerns arise from the applicant having been involved in the most serious of crimes.”

Indeed, the regulator takes the position that while a young person’s finding of guilt “may be deemed not to have occurred under federal legislation” after their sentence ends, that doesn’t mean the crime or the underlying behaviour never happened.

“In other words, legislation like the YCJA does not have the effect of erasing the past.”

The regulator has since removed the question it asked Beth in 2016, but now asks applicants: “Are there any matters not mentioned above that, when reasonably and objectively considered, might adversely reflect on the reputation of the legal and paralegal professions in Ontario or your ability to practise law or provide legal services should you be licensed?”

The Law Society argues that the updated form would still result in Beth having to reveal her involvement with the justice system, and says that the YCJA “does not prevent the Law Society from asking about YCJA findings on the licensing application.”

It remains unclear what arguments the Law Society might make at a good-character hearing, should it be permitted to use Beth’s youth records. The lawyers state that while the circumstances of a crime committed as a youth “may give rise to ‘good character’ concerns,” a finding of guilt in and of itself doesn’t automatically mean a person will be blocked from getting a licence.

“Many other factors are considered such as rehabilitation, remorse, insight, and the passage of time,” they wrote.

Asked for comment on the case, a spokesperson for the Law Society reiterated that the regulator is seeking a review of Duncan’s decision.

It’s “really very disappointing” to see the Law Society continue down this path, said the president of the Criminal Lawyers’ Association. Boris Bytensky explained that the YCJA recognizes that youth who commit crimes lack the maturity of adults and must be treated differently, hence the emphasis on rehabilitation.

“I don’t know who this is designed to protect,” he said of the regulator’s efforts. “I’m not sure that someone’s acts as children are a proper barometer of whether or not they have the proper characteristics to become a lawyer.”

Criminal Lawyers’ Association president Boris Bytensky.

He said Beth’s decision to pursue an education and career and lead a pro-social life “is exactly what we expect from people who have committed crimes as youth. So why are we standing in the way?”

As Voula Marinos puts it: “Punishment should have an end date.” A professor in the departments of child and youth studies and forensic psychology and criminal justice at Brock University, Marinos said the case raises important questions about the purpose and spirit of the YCJA.

“The idea is that young people should be held accountable for their offences and sentenced to proportionate sentences, but once completed, if they’re leading non-criminal lifestyles, then it certainly should not impact their ability to be contributing members of society,” she said.

“Otherwise, why do we have a separate youth justice system?”

Beth has seen job opportunities come and go because she still isn’t a licensed lawyer, including an in-house counsel job offer, and positions in family law and criminal defence. She says she lost a well-paying job as a senior policy analyst in 2023 after her employer became aware of the Law Society proceedings.

She’s on her third last name, having changed it twice to protect herself and her son after her identity was leaked online. Colleagues have googled her name, she says, telling her that they’ve read about her.

Her family has told her to just give up, while she says her son’s faith in her ability to become a lawyer has been shattered.

“The message LSO is sending to the public is: ‘Those with a youth record need not apply. We don’t want you. We will destroy your future before you start your career,’” Beth says in her tribunal affidavit.

“LSO should do the right thing and let me proceed directly to licensing,” she wrote.

“This would ensure the YCJA is respected, so others with a youth record have a real second chance when they have put in the work to improve themselves — like I have.”

Jacques Gallant is a Toronto-based reporter covering courts,justice and legal affairs for the Star. Reach him by emailat [email protected] orfollow him on Twitter: @JacquesGallant