A US woman was sentenced to life in prison Friday for plotting to slaughter shoppers at a mall in the Canadian port city of Halifax. Lindsay Souvannarath, 26, pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy to commit murder in the case. With credit for time served behind bars awaiting trial, she will be eligible for parole after seven years.
Souvannarath and two co-conspirators had planned to shoot shoppers and throw Molotov cocktails at storefronts at the Halifax Shopping Centre on Valentine's Day 2015. The port city is home to the Canadian navy's Atlantic fleet. Acting on a tip, police arrested Souvannarath and Canadian Randall Shepherd at the Halifax airport and foiled the plot. Shepherd was picking up Souvannarath, who had arrived on a flight from her hometown of Geneva, Illinois.
Shepherd also pleaded guilty and was sentenced in 2016 to 10 years behind bars. A third conspirator, James Gamble, was found dead in his home on the eve of the would-be attack. Nova Scotia Supreme Court Justice Peter Rosinski told the court Friday that Souvannarath is a threat to society, noting that she has not expressed remorse, nor renounced her ideological motivations for the plot. Outside the courtroom, the Crown attorney said the case "brought home that our community was at risk" of a mass shooting, and that "something very serious was only narrowly averted by the quick action of the police."
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