McGray pleads guilty to Hicks murder
Life in prison - no parole for 25 years. That's the sentence for Michael Wayne McGray. He pleaded guilty in Moncton to the first degree murder of Newfoundlander Joan Hicks two years ago. McGray has admitted to several other murders, too.
No remorse - that's the way police describe Michael Wayne McGray. McGray pleaded guilty to murdering Joan Hicks in her Moncton apartment two years ago. But, he refused to admit his part in the murder of her 11-year old daughter Nina. Proceedings in that case have been stayed, or suspended, for the time being.
Crown Prosecutor Tony Allman says McGray told his side of the story to a police officer at the Renous Institution last fall. In the statement, McGray describes how he'd spent the day mainlining cocaine. He says he became overwhelmed with a recurring urge to kill somebody. His girlfriend was at the home of Joan Hicks. He went to Hicks' home and sent his girlfriend away. He described choking Joan Hicks against the wall. Once she was unconscious, he slashed her throat with a breadknife to make sure she was dead.
McGray has also confessed to the murder in Saint John of Mark Daniel Gibbons in 1987. Gibbons was stabbed to death in Market Square shortly after McGray, Gibbons and another man had robbed a taxi driver at knifepoint. He'll be appearing in Saint John on that charge in May.
The other confessions related to the stabbing death in 1991 of two Montreal men. He has also been charged with those murders.
Constable Adrian Tomkins was the officer who took McGray's confessions. He says there may be even more murders in McGray's past: "There are numerous responses from other jurisdictions within Canada, and we are working together to try to assist them with any information that we can provide ... which will possibly give a conclusion to some of the murder investigations that have been open for some time in those areas."
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McGray was sentenced on Monday to the maximum sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. However, police may try to have him declared a dangerous offender, which would keep him behind bars indefinitely.