‘He’s an angel now,’ six-year-old says of slain father, stabbed to death in 2022

Since the 2022 stabbing death of his father, 25-year-old Jeremy Clause, Elijah has been raised by Sherry, his grandmother. On Friday, she told a Brantford court her young grandson is keenly aware his father is dead.

The boy looks just like her son, Sherry says. That he will never grow up with his father is just another piece of the family’s now tragic story.

The Friday sentencing of Clause’s killer to nine and half years in prison didn’t provide any sense of closure to his family, but at least the ordeal of the court proceedings is over, she said.

“I am trying really hard not to have hate in my heart,” Sherry said outside the Brantford courthouse where Nicholas Craig, 22, was sentenced. “I hope in time that will pass.”

Craig, who pleaded guilty to manslaughter in January, will serve most of the next decade in prison. Justice Harrison Arrell, calling Craig’s actions “vicious and violent,” said no sentence will bring Clause back to his mother and her family.

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• Dec 31, 1969

• Dec 31, 1969

“I do not pretend to understand or fully appreciate how devastated and hurt they are and how much they have suffered,” Arrell said. “But I do accept that their love, grief and sadness in the loss of Jeremy is very real. Regrettably, they will have to have loss indefinitely.”

The court heard that Craig stabbed Clause in the heart on Oct. 22, 2022, outside a house on Cayuga Street in Brantford after an “argument over nothing.”

The two men had not previously met, and the argument happened over breakfast. The stabbing happened after the two men stepped outside. The assistant Crown attorney told Arrell that Clause did not present any threat to Craig before he drew his knife.

Craig fled the scene, “without rendering assistance or calling for assistance,” Arrell said.

Sherry stood before Arrell to read a victim impact statement to the court, but she burst into tears.

“I can’t,” she said, and the statement was read into the record by the Crown attorney.

In it, Sherry explained that while the stabbing was happening, she and her husband were on their way to pick up Clause. It was her husband’s birthday, and the family was going out to celebrate.

“It was supposed to be a celebration. But it turned into the worst day of our lives.”

Clause was taken to a Hamilton hospital where he died.

“My heart was ripped out of my body and all I could do was shout, ‘No, no, not my boy!’” Sherry wrote about finding out at the hospital her son was dead.

Clause’s aunt Clara White read her own statement to the court, and said her family’s grief is a “life sentence” they may not recover from.

Listening in the prisoner’s box Craig, dressed in a black sweater and pants with out-turned pockets, hunched over and wiped tears from his face as the statements were read.

His lawyer told Arrell that Craig was diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder as a teenager. His medications control the voices in his head, the court heard, but sometimes trigger episodes of paranoia and anxiety.

In his own statement to the court, during which he apologized to Clause’s family for the killing, Craig said he has struggled with mental-health issues his whole life and on the day of the stabbing he was not aware of what he was doing.

While Arrell accepted that Craig does suffer from mental-health problems, has the support his family and has completed some rehabilitation courses while in jail — much of which involved Biblical studies — he pointed out that Craig arrived at the Brantford home carrying a knife “for no explicable reason.”

In making he decision, Arrell said the principles of deterrent and the moral culpability of the accused was more important in this case than his circumstances and remorse.

The sentencing hearing was delayed for several months because Craig’s lawyer had requested Gladue report — a special presentence report about the circumstances and background of Indigenous offenders that may guide a judge in sentencing.

However, Arrell said the report was never completed because insufficient information about Craig’s Indigenous background could be found. Arrell said Craig was told by a relative that his father was Indigenous, but even that is true, “Indigenous culture was not really part of the offender’s life until very recently learned of his background from his aunt.”

Sherry’s family is Mohawk and Clause grew up in Six Nations, she said. After the hearing, she said she was pleased the Gladue report wasn’t completed, because it may have further delayed Craig’s sentencing.

Craig’s sentence is on the high-end for a manslaughter conviction. However, he is being credited for time he served in jail before sentencing, which amounts to just over two years. That means Craig’s actual prison time is reduced to a little more than seven years.

“It is not the sentence I wanted to see, but at least this is over now. I don’t have to come to court and see that man every day,” Sherry said outside the courtroom. “He now has a long time to think about what he did. But I, of course, will never forget his face.”