A Facebook selfie helped solve a murder case because the photo of two friends showed the killer wearing the murder weapon.
A woman has been convicted of killing her friend after police discovered a photo on Facebook showing her wearing the belt she used to strangle the teenager.
Cheyenne Rose Antoine, 21, pleaded guilty on Monday after Brittney Gargol, 18, was found dead near a landfill site in Saskatchewan, Canada, in March 2015.
The blue belt with a large buckle was found on the roadside near Gargol’s body, according to the Saskatoon Star Phoenix.
An autopsy ruled Gargol died of strangulation.
It would be two years before police arrested Antoine and charged her with second-degree murder. She was jailed for seven years after admitting the lesser crime of manslaughter.
Saskatoon Provincial Court was told Antoine had been drinking alcohol and was high on marijuana when the pair got into a heated argument.
Police said the story Antoine initially gave – that they had been drinking at bars before Gargol left with an unidentified man – failed to add up, and a Facebook post the following morning was a diversion.
“Where are you? Haven’t heard from you. Hope you made it home safe,” she wrote on Gargol’s personal page.
Someone eventually approached Gargol’s family telling them that Antoine, drunk and hysterical, had admitted to choking her friend following an argument.
Antoine claimed she could not remember killing Gargol, but did not deny she did it.
“I will never forgive myself. Nothing I say or do will ever bring her back. I am very, very sorry… It shouldn’t have ever happened,” she said in a statement.
The court was told Antoine had suffered years of abuse in Canada’s care system, and a month before the killing reported abuse by foster parents to the police.
In a victim impact statement, Gargol’s aunt, Jennifer Gargol, said: “Most days we can’t stop thinking about Brittney, what happened that night, what she must have felt fighting for her life.”
