Alberta man pleads guilty to first-degree murder in deaths of Hinton woman, toddler

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An Alberta man will be sentenced in November after pleading guilty to brutally murdering a woman and her 16-month-old son in his Hinton apartment in September of last year.

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Robert Keith Major pleaded guilty in Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench in Hinton on Monday to the first-degree murders of Mchale Busch, 24, and her toddler son, Noah.

He appeared via CCTV from the Edmonton Remand Centre, dressed in an orange prisoner’s jumpsuit and blue surgical mask, and gave one-word answers to queries from Justice Marta Burns.

A three-day sentencing hearing is scheduled for November 22 when Major is expected to attend in person.

He had initially been charged with second-degree murder before an RCMP review of evidence in December prompted the new first-degree charges.

He was also facing two counts of indignity to human remains though prosecutors indicated those charges will be withdrawn following sentencing.

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‘MR. MAJOR HAD A PLAN’

Court heard an agreed statement of facts on Monday as read into the record by Crown Prosecutor Phil LeFeuvre.

It details how Major lived in the unit adjacent to that of Busch, her son, and her partner, Cody McConnell.

On Sept. 16, 2021, Mchale took Noah to a nearby park in the morning before returning around noon.

It’s unclear why, but Mchale was inside Major’s apartment about two hours later.

Major then pushed her onto the floor, put both of his hands around her neck and began strangling her for up to 10 minutes, eventually choking her with a nearby cable that was later found to have her DNA on it.

After her death, he put on medical gloves, removed her clothing and sexually assaulted her with first his fingers and then a wooden spoon.

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“Mr. Major had a plan and that was to commit a sexual assault on her,” the statement reads.

He then moved her body to the bathtub before using various knives to remove a number of her internal organs.

Police believe that Major then entered Busch’s apartment, took Noah back to his apartment, before suffocating the toddler by putting a sock in his mouth and tying a plastic bag around his chest.

“Mr Major decided to kill Noah to stop his crying,” the agreed statement of facts reads.

RCMP INVESTIGATION

The court saw surveillance video of Major throwing out two garbage bags that contained Noah’s remains and Mchael’s clothing and cell phone.

McConnell returned home from work later that evening and became concerned about Mchale and Noah’s whereabouts.

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Mounties began to search and canvassed residents of the apartment complex.

The court heard audio of an officer’s interview with Major, where he claimed that Busch had run out of the complex alone in tears hours earlier.

“This was a fabrication and attempt to throw off police investigation,” the agreed statement of facts reads.

Police eventually found Busch’s phone, and later Noah’s remains, inside one of the bags Major had thrown out in a dumpster.

Mounties entered his apartment and found her body, nude and face-down, in Major’s bathtub. He was arrested and charged a short while later.

Burns ordered a pre-sentence report ahead of the November sentencing hearing.

First-degree murder convictions carry with them an automatic sentence of life in prison with no parole for 25 years.

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@ByMatthewBlack