Kayla Bourque released on probation after eight-month prison sentence

By Sahira Memon

With dark brown braids, brown eyes, and a slight build, Kayla Bourque appears at first to be fairly ordinary. However, she has proven to be anything but. Bourque, who studied criminology at SFU, recently caught the attention of the legal system after boasting to a friend in her SFU dorm about dismembering and disemboweling her pet cat. Later investigations also uncovered videos of her eviscerating and hanging her family’s dog while narrating her actions.

On top of this brutal animal cruelty, 22-year-old Bourque also expressed a desire to move her violent acts to humans, confiding her desires to shoot a homeless man, and to kill her roommate in
SFU residence. Only the fear of a trail of evidence deterred her, though it wouldn’t have for long. Bourque had confessed to enrolling in a forensics course at SFU to deal with this issue.

The confession concerned Bourque’s friend, who reported her to school authorities, who in turn called the police. Following this, Bourque was arrested under the Mental Health Act. Eight months later, Bourque pleaded guilty to killing/injuring an animal, causing unnecessary suffering and pain to an animal, and possession of a knife. The presiding Justice McLean extended her original sentence of six months in order to allow probation officials to put together an incredibly stringent set of probation conditions.

As part of her three-year probation, Bourque is prohibited from accessing the internet, associating with anyone under 18, or possessing duct tape, needles, and knives. She will be required to detail her charges to anyone who visits her at her residence, and no guests are allowed to remain between the hours of 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. Bourque is also banned from owning a pet for the rest of her life.

Bourque’s release from behind bars has made many members of the community uneasy, and there are already petitions and pages online set against Bourque’s reintroduction to society, but SFU director of criminology Robert Gordon advises against incarceration as a successful deterrent
for future criminal behavior. He claims that instead of reforming Bourque, her manipulative personality may “begin to affect the inmates around her,” creating possible accomplices and increased chances of recidivism among her peers. According to Gordon, if the probation does not prove to be stringent enough, the only way to legally and successfully put a stop to future criminal behavior would involve constant, uninterrupted surveillance at all times.

Psychologists were struck by Bourque’s apparent amorality, wasting no time in assessing her as a psychopath with narcissistic disorder. This diagnosis cannot classify Bourque as mentally ill; she is rather a functioning human being that appears to lack any sort of conscience. Doctors also describe her as a “sexual sadist.” Orphaned at an early age in Romania, the first eight months of Bourque’s life were spent in a Romanian orphanage, in which children are malnourished and abused. Although Bourque was adopted at an early age, the traumatic events experienced during this time could have contributed to her current condition.

A search through Bourque’s room in SFU residence and her home in Prince George initiated by CBC revealed plenty of warning signs. A blue nylon bag containing a seven-inch knife, a razor blade, zip ties, garbage bags, and a needle and a mask was found in her SFU residence room. Identified as a “kill kit” by the authorities, this was a disturbing sign that Bourque was ready to take the next step in violent crime.

These findings were not the only indicator, and not the earliest. Searches into Bourque’s past
revealed that Bourque admitted to having an urge to “kill someone,” and was expelled from a previous high school in Prince George for a violent incident as far back as 2006. Robert Gordon
noted this event, and lamented the fact that an individual showing such serious indications of criminal behavior was not taken notice of at an earlier time. “The inner system was not penetrated [by her actions], so I guess she slipped through.” Bourque will be residing in a residence provided by the probationary committee, as she is currently not welcomed back home to her family in Prince George.