FILE PHOTO - Grace Elinor Robotti was granted day parole on Dec. 15, 2023.

(STEVE ARSTAD / iNFOnews.ca)

Grace Robotti was granted day parole less than seven years after she was locked up for beating the mother of her great grandson to death.

The Parole Board of Canada approved her day parole in December, which comes just over three years before she's eligible for full parole on her life sentence.

Robotti, 73, was convicted in 2017 for the second degree murder of Roxanne Louie and for disposing of her body.

Louie was the ex-girlfriend of Robotti's grandson.

During Robotti's trial, she told the court the two were in her Penticton mobile home when they got into an argument in January 2015. She testified that the argument got physical and Louie grabbed a crowbar. At some point, Robotti picked the crowbar up from the floor and used it to kill Louie. There was no actual evidence that Louie initiated any violence with the crowbar, just Robotti's statement.

She hit the young mother in the head 26 times.

Robotti enlisted her brother's help to dispose of the body. He took Louie's body to a remote area, while Robotti scattered Louie's belongings and the crowbar in dumpsters around the city, according to the parole board decision.

They then reported Louie as missing, but within a week they confessed to the deed to "several people," according to the decision. That proved to be their downfall as police were tipped off. Despite Robotti's continued claims in court that she didn't mean to kill Louie, she did admit during the trial that she held resentment for the young mother.

The parole board found Robotti felt "genuine remorse" for the killing, but also noted she had anger issues upon beginning her sentence in 2017. She had "repressed anger, frustration and helplessness" when she was first locked up, the decision reads.

She continued to see a counsellor and was working as a librarian at her minimum security facility, where she was sent in March 2022.

The parole board found she was of low risk to offend again, but despite Robotti's "concern" for Louie's family and interest in restorative justice, ordered that she not have any contact with the family during her day parole.

Her day parole was granted on Dec. 15, 2023, less than eight years after she killed Louie.

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