WARNING: This story contains graphic details some readers may find disturbing.
Kamloops prosecutors are seeking approval from provincial officials in Victoria to apply to have a killer who cut his victim into seven pieces labelled a dangerous offender — a designation that could see him jailed indefinitely.
Nathaniel David Jessup, 35, was convicted in November of manslaughter and offering an indignity to human remains. The case was referred to by a judge as “macabre” and “beyond the pale."
Jessup was 28 in the summer of 2015, when Katherine McAdam vanished from her home in Creston. The 59-year-old’s body was located 12 days later.
At trial, court heard Jessup, who was homeless at the time, had a friendly relationship with McAdam.
He killed her on Aug. 15, 2015, inside the basement suite she rented on Cedar Street in Creston. Her dismembered remains were later located by police inside a bike trailer on an acreage in Erickson, an unincorporated community just east of Creston.
Following his conviction, prosecutors said they wanted Jessup assessed for a possible dangerous offender designation. That assessment was completed in February.
During a brief hearing in B.C. Supreme Court on Wednesday, prosecutors said they are seeking approval from B.C.’s deputy attorney general to proceed with a dangerous offender application.
Dangerous offender status is reserved for Canada's most serious and violent offenders who have been deemed likely to reoffend. Dangerous offenders are locked up indefinitely unless a judge is convinced a lesser sentence would adequately protect the public.
Jessup was acquitted following a previous murder trial in 2019. He was charged with second-degree murder in the 2014 death of Dylan Levi Judd, his cellmate at Kamloops Regional Correctional Centre.
In that case, a judge ruled there was not enough evidence to prove Judd did not take his own life — as police initially believed.
Jessup was arrested in the Lower Mainland weeks after McAdam’s death and he has been in custody since. During that time, he has served a 3.5-year sentence following a series of choking incidents involving children.
Jessup’s dangerous offender hearing is expected to take three weeks. Lawyers are now trying to find court time. Crown prosecutor Laura Drake said previously it could be 2024 before the hearing takes place.
A date for Jessup’s dangerous offender hearing is expected to be set on April 24.
