This young man could have had the kind of future most actors only dream about. He could have walked red carpets, appeared on movie screens around the world, and built a real name for himself in Hollywood. But instead of becoming known for his talent, he became known for something much darker. He became known as the man who took a life.
This is the story of Ryan Grantham, the actor many people recognized from the show Riverdale. Before we get into it, help this channel grow. Please like this video, leave a comment, and subscribe for more stories like this. It really helps the channel more than you know. Thank you. Ryan Granthm had already appeared in around 30 movies and television shows.
People knew him from projects like I Zombie, Falling Skies, Jumper, Supernatural, Riverdale, and several others. But in recent years, Ryan’s name has not been brought up because of his acting work. It has been mentioned for a much more disturbing reason. Ryan Grantham became the man responsible for a terrible crime, one he carried out while trying in his own twisted thinking to remain a good son in his mother’s eyes.
When the pandemic hit in the spring of 2020, people all over the world were suddenly forced to stay inside their homes and apartments. Families were spending nearly all of their free time together, whether they were ready for it or not. Ryan and his mother, Barbara, were staying in their townhouse, passing the evenings by playing board games together.
In a way, Barbara was happy to have that time with her grown son. Like my many mothers, she probably saw it as a rare chance to be close to him again. But Ryan had been struggling more and more in recent years. His acting career was fading, and the offers were no longer coming in the way they once had.
He did not know how to deal with that loss, and instead of processing it in a healthy way, he seemed to turn his anger toward the entire world. Eventually, Ryan even moved out of his student dorm and back into his mother’s home because he badly needed emotional support from someone close to him. Barbara tried everything she could to help her son.
She wanted to lift his mood, make him smile, and help him forget even for a little while, about the problems weighing on him. Her children, Ryan and his older sister, Lisa, were the center of her life. They were the reason she got up every morning. After growing tired of the board games, Ryan went upstairs to his room on the second floor.
Barbara stayed downstairs, sat at the piano, and began to play. She knew Ryan loved hearing her play, so she poured her heart into a familiar melody. In that moment, Barbara had no way of knowing that her time was almost over. She did not know she would never even get to finish that piece of music for the son she loved. so deeply.
One of the reasons everything had spiraled so far was the illegal substances that had already taken hold of the mind of the person who was planning to end her life. Ryan Grantham was born on November 30th, 1998. He grew up in Squamish, a small town in British Columbia, not far from Vancouver, and that same area would later become the setting for the events in this story.
Ryan spent his childhood with his mother, Barbara, and his older sister, Lisa. His father left the family shortly after Ryan was born. After that, Ryan had almost no relationship with him, and there is little doubt that this absence affected the course of his life. From the time he was very young, Ryan felt abandoned and unwanted.
In his mind, his own father had rejected him, and that painful feeling would later grow into many other emotional problems. Even as a small child, Ryan was already dealing with mental and emotional struggles. He suffered from anxiety and developed a speech problem. Much of this was connected to the fact that he did not have a real relationship with his father.
When Ryan started school, life became even harder for him. His classmates picked on him constantly and showed him very little mercy. A lot of their cruelty was connected to the way he spoke. But that was not the only reason other kids targeted him. Ryan was also very short. In fact, he was the smallest student in his class. That insecurity followed him long after childhood.
As an adult, he was only about 5’2 in tall or 157 cm. And because he was also thin, he often looked much younger than he really was. After years of being mocked and pushed aside, Ryan developed severe social anxiety. He began to see himself as an outsider, someone who had been cut off from the rest of the world. By the time he was only 11 or 12 years old, Ryan was already thinking about ending his own life because of his mental health struggles.
Through all of this, the one person who helped him keep going was his mother. Barbara White was Ryan’s strongest source of support. She was the person he could always count on. People who knew her described her as an incredible woman, kind, selfless, intelligent, and full of charisma. Barbara had a close bond with both of her children.
She loved spending time with them outdoors, whether they were skiing, riding bikes, hiking, or simply going for walks together. Even though Barbara herself was short, a trait she later passed on to her children, she was strong, brave, and full of life. She faced difficulties with a steady, positive attitude that many people admired. Barbara also loved animals.
There were always pets in the house, and she was known as a caring and devoted daughter to her elderly mother as well. Overall, Barbara really was an exceptional person. She was a loving mother, a caring daughter, and someone who gave everything she had to the people around her. But no matter how much love she gave Ryan, she still could not take the place of a father and she could not replace the friends he never really had.
Ryan’s family was very close and he had a strong relationship with his older sister Lisa. When people came over, Ryan would often entertain his family and friends by putting on little performances for them. Because from the time he was young, Ryan had one big dream. He wanted to become an actor. He wanted to be in movies.
At first, his family became his audience, and they supported him with real excitement. His interest in acting appeared early. Ryan was only about 6 years old when he started copying the habits and mannerisms of adults in a way that made everyone laugh. Barbara noticed this talent right away, and soon she began taking him to acting classes, auditions, and different casting calls.
And before long, that effort started to work. At just 8 years old, Ryan began appearing in television commercials. For both Ryan and Barbara, this was a huge moment. Then when he was nine, his acting career moved another step forward. He landed his first movie role in The Secret of the Nutcracker, a film that gave a new version of Hoffman’s classic story.
It was a Canadian Christmas fantasy movie, and to be honest, it was not some major masterpiece, but for Ryan, getting a role in a real film was still a massive achievement. It was his first important part and the beginning of what looked like a promising future. After The Secret of the Nutcracker, more doors began to open.
Over the next year, young Ryan Grantham appeared in eight different film and television roles. Of course, most of them were small supporting parts, but for a kid his age, it was still the kind of opportunity many children only dream about. Then, Ryan was offered a guest role on the series Supernatural. In that episode, he played a memorable character named Todd, a boy with superhuman strength who used his power to get back the people who bullied him.
Ryan loved that role and when you look at his own life, it is easy to understand why Todd was almost like the version of himself Ryan may have imagined during the years when other kids picked on him at school. In that role, Ryan got to play himself in a world where he finally had power. For a young actor, appearing on Supernatural was already a dream come true.
But after that, even more opportunities started coming his way. Soon after, Ryan landed a part in the major Hollywood film, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnasses. In the movie, Granthm played the younger version of one of the main characters, and the cast was filled with major Hollywood names, including Johnny Depp, Colin Ferrell, Heath Ledger, Jude Law, and a young Andrew Garfield.
For a boy just starting out, acting alongside people like that must have felt unbelievable. That same year, Ryan also joined the cast of the Canadian fantasy miniseries Reza: Kingdom Falling. By 2010, Ryan Grantham had already appeared in several Canadian and Hollywood productions. Most of his roles were small, and his cute boyish appearance often placed him in minor parts, but he was building a real portfolio and learning by watching experienced actors work.
For someone at the beginning of a career, this was a very successful start, and Ryan clearly seemed to believe he was moving in the right direction toward becoming a star known far beyond Canada. His mother was with him every step of the way. Barbara encouraged him to follow his dream and did everything she could to help people notice him.
She drove Ryan across Canada and the United States so he could attend auditions, casting calls, and film shoots. In 2010, when Ryan was 11 years old, he landed a role in Diary of a Wimpy Kid. The movie was based on Jeff Kenny’s popular book series about the everyday adventures of a middle school student. After that project, the young actor received positive attention from critics.
He was nominated for several awards and even won best actor at a Vancouver short film competition. That same year, Ryan also appeared in the comedy Marley and Me: The Puppy Years. It was a follow-up to Marley and Me, released straight to video instead of theaters. Even so, getting a role in that movie was not easy, and for Ryan, it was another important step.
Then in 2012, when Ryan was 13, he got the lead role in a much larger project called Becoming Redwood. In the film, he played Redwood, an 11-year-old boy who believed that if he won a golf tournament, he could bring his parents back together. Becoming Redwood became the most popular Canadian film of 2012 at the Vancouver International Film Festival.
It also received the jury’s honorable Award for best Canadian film. For Ryan, this was a major milestone. This was not just another small role. This was a film that was going to be shown in theaters. And for a young actor, that meant everything. There are quite a few behindthe-scenes videos from this project where you can see Ryan talking with the director and clearly enjoying every moment on set.
During those years, the teenager looked like he was exactly where he was supposed to be. He seemed comfortable, excited, and genuinely happy. At that point, Ryan’s acting career seemed to be moving in the right direction. He was getting noticed, landing more serious roles and starting to play lead characters. For a while, it really looked like his childhood dream was coming true.
But sadly, that success did not last. After the drama Becoming Redwood, Ryan’s Grantham’s acting career slowly began to fade. He still appeared in small parts, mostly in low-budget or forgettable projects, but from then on, he was showing up on screen much less often. It seems Ryan had reached the age where that innocent childlike look was starting to disappear.
He was no longer the cute little kid casting directors remembered. He had become a teenager and suddenly the competition was much harder for Ryan. This was a painful stage of life. He had grown used to casting directors being drawn to his appearance, his charm and his talent. But now that same magic did not work the way it used to.
And this happens to a lot of child actors. One day they are seen as bright young stars with huge potential. Then almost overnight the best roles stop coming and the industry starts looking somewhere else. Ryan had an especially hard time dealing with this change because he was already carrying many mental health struggles. When acting was going well and he had something to focus on, his condition seemed to improve.
But once his career started sliding downhill again that the depression and anxiety came back and this time they hit him even harder. Ryan found it difficult to communicate with people and connect with those around him. So he began using weed as a way to escape from his thoughts. Before long it was no longer just occasional use.
It turned into a real dependency. Dark thoughts started creeping back into his mind once again. He felt like a useless outsider. Someone who did not belong anywhere. Thoughts about ending his own life returned as well. On top of everything else, Ryan also struggled with intimacy and had a difficult time understanding his own preferences.
In 2016, Ryan turned 18, finished high school, and enrolled at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. For a moment, it seemed like his life might finally be improving again. Grantham started getting invited back onto film sets. He even landed a lead role in the Canadian movie Considering Love and Other Magic. a teen romantic comedy where he played a shy ghost who had been unable to leave a house for more than 60 years.
After that, Ryan began appearing again in guest roles on TV shows and television movies, usually playing teenage characters. Then, not long after, Ryan got a small part in the American series Riverdale, which was based on the Archie comics. And even though the role itself was brief, it would become the most recognizable part of his career.
Ryan did not have much screen time, but his character was important to the story. Across seven seasons, Riverdale followed the life of Archie Andrews and his friends in the town of Riverdale. On the surface, Archie was cheerful and determined, the kind of person who did not stay down for long. But the show was set in a modern world where the characters slowly uncovered the darker side of what looked like a quiet, peaceful town.
Behind the colorful, almost festive surface, Riverdale was filled with secrets. strange events and hidden danger. At one point, production had to pause briefly so the writers could change the script after the unexpected passing of one of the main actors. The first episode of the fourth season was fully dedicated to Fred Andrews, Archie’s father, who passed away in the story.
Fred was played by Luke Perry, a beloved actor who suddenly died during filming after suffering a stroke at the age of 52. Luke Perry was extremely popular and his character meant a lot to Riverdale fans. So, the creators dedicated an entire episode to Fred Andrews and gave the character a heartbreaking goodbye. In the show, Fred died after a car accident, and Ryan Grantham played the young man responsible for what happened.
The scene was intense. Even though it lasted less than a minute, Ryan’s character never appeared again after that. But despite being on screen only once, he played a major role in the direction of the plot. After that small appearance in Riverdale, Grantham hoped his career might finally start moving forward again.
He kept going to auditions and kept chasing different roles. But rejection followed him again and again. Altogether, Ryan Grantham’s filmography included around 30 projects, which was impressive considering he was not even 20 years old yet. At the same time, Ryan was still attending university and trying to figure out what to do with his life.
He was desperately trying to hold on to a positive mindset. But inside, he was struggling badly to cope with everything. Ryan started using substances again. It happened more and more often, and before long, it had grown back into a serious addiction. When Ryan’s mother found out how badly her son was struggling, she tried to do everything in her power to help him.
Barbara had always supported Ryan emotionally, no matter what he was going through. At her urging, he went into rehab twice, but both times after he came home, he slipped back into the same destructive habits. By this point, Grantham was dealing with even heavier mental health issues. He felt completely alone, and his anxiety kept getting worse.
Eventually, he stopped talking to his classmates, left campus, and moved back into his mother’s home. Then, Ryan began missing classes. His grades started falling. Even studying or finishing basic assignments became difficult for him. Before long, he was facing the possibility of being kicked out of university. But Ryan did not tell his mother any of this.
He did not want Barbara to be disappointed in him. He already felt ashamed that he kept failing at the things he cared about. First, his acting career had fallen apart. Now, even school was slipping away from him. More than anything, Ryan just wanted his mother to be proud of him. At the same time, Grantham still had no real male support in his life because he did not have a relationship with his father.
And then on top of everything else, his mother, Barbara, was diagnosed with cancer and had to go through treatment. Barbara was strong, brave, and determined to fight the illness. But her health was far from perfect, and seeing that only made Ryan’s fear and anxiety grow even worse. By the end of 2019, 21-year-old Ryan was in his fourth year of university.
At that time, he was dealing with severe depression, but he hid the worst of it, even from his mother. Barbara could feel that something was wrong with her son, but she had no idea just how serious it had become. Ryan once again began thinking about ending his own life. Around that same period, he started drifting into the darkest corners of the internet and became obsessed with violent content.
Grantham watched disturbing videos on the dark web, including real footage of people being harmed, brutal incidents, crashes, and other horrifying clips where people lost their lives on camera. Around then, he also developed an interest in firearms. He started going to gun clubs in Canada and bought two rifles and a shotgun.
Ryan also became fascinated with serial offenders and people responsible for large public tragedies. In a disturbing way, he saw parts of himself in them because many of them had also been outsiders. The 2019 movie Joker starring Waqen Phoenix seemed to have a strong influence on him. The film takes place in the early 1980s.
Its main character, Arthur Fleck, is a comedian who lives with his sick mother. Since childhood, she had taught him to keep smiling, to bring joy into the world, and to make other people happy. But Arthur is met with cruelty from society. People see him as strange and different. Little by little, he comes to believe that the world does not deserve his kind smile.
Instead, it gets the cold grin of a villain. Ryan deeply connected with that character. Like Arthur, he was struggling with serious mental health issues and felt rejected by the world around him. In the movie, Joker deals with his inner chaos by taking the life of a talk show host on live television, a man he sees as a symbol of everything wrong with society.
As Grantham sank deeper into Arthur Flex world, he began imagining that he could do something similar. He started to believe that some act of violence might somehow put an end to the pain inside his mind. Ryan began thinking through different ways he could take a life. He went deeper and deeper into that darkness while continuing to watch real death footage on the dark web.
Then in March of 2020, the pandemic began. The world went into lockdown and Ryan became even more isolated than before. For him, that isolation became too much. At that point, he decided his dark fantasies would not remain fantasies anymore. He wanted to turn them into reality. Grantham’s diary began filling with alarming entries about carrying out an act of mass violence.
He was heavily influenced by Joker and by the idea of becoming someone the world would never forget. Ryan decided that people were going to know his name. He imagined his photo on newspaper covers. He believed that everyone who had ignored him before would finally be talking about him. Lost in these dark thoughts, Ryan began planning to target Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
In his mind, that would secure his place in history, even if it was for the worst possible reason. So Ryan started making plans involving Trudeau. He gathered weapons, learned how to make incendiary bottles, and began tracking the prime minister’s movements. But before that, he decided he needed a practice run.
He believed he had to take a life first and the person he chose was his own mother. It was not because Ryan did not love Barbara. In his twisted thinking, he did not want his mother to witness the person he was about to become. He did not want her to feel shame, heartbreak, or devastation after learning that her son had turned into a criminal.
And that is what makes this part so tragic. Barbara was the one person who loved Ryan through all his flaws. She had been his biggest supporter from the beginning. She had poured her heart into raising him. And now Grantham believed he was somehow protecting her from his downfall in the most horrifying way imaginable. He even recorded himself walking through the house with a rifle, rehearsing what he planned to do to his mother.
Those videos were later shown in court as evidence that this was planned ahead of time. On the evening of March 30, 2020, Ryan and Barbara were alone at home. By then, his older sister Lisa had already moved out. Mother and son spent the evening playing board games together. Barbara thought they were simply having a nice night. At 6:45 p.m.
, Ryan suddenly got up from the table and left the living room. He went upstairs to his bedroom where he picked up a 22 caliber rifle and prepared to carry out his deadly plan. Then Ryan started walking back down the stairs. Halfway down, he saw his mother sitting at the piano just beginning to play.
Ryan had always loved listening to Barbara play music for him. So, in that moment, he stopped. He froze on the stairs, sat down quietly, and just listened. For the next 15 minutes, Ryan stayed there, completely absorbed in the sound of the piano. He watched his mother’s hands move across the keys, playing a melody that had probably filled that house many times before.
From where he sat on the stairs, he could see the back of her head. Barbara was lost in the music and did not notice anything around her. To her, it may have felt like an ordinary peaceful evening at home with her son nearby. She did not hear Ryan stand up behind her. She did not hear him raise the rifle, aim it at her head, switch off the safety, close his eyes, and pull the trigger.
Grantham fired one shot, striking his mother in the head. Barbara died instantly. She fell from the piano bench onto the floor, and blood began to spread from the wound. In that moment, the life of 64year-old Barbara Wait came to a tragic end. One second she was playing music for the son she loved. The next everything she had built, protected, and cared for was gone.
And maybe the only small mercy in this whole nightmare was that Barbara never saw who did it. If she had realized her own son was behind her, it would have destroyed her heart before anything else did. 15 minutes is a long time. It is enough time for a person to think, to stop, to walk away, and to abandon a dark plan against the woman who gave him life and raised him.
But Ryan did not do that. Instead, he picked up his camera and began recording a video for his vlog. Grantham walked through the house, filming everything around him, including Barbara’s body on the floor while calmly explaining what he had just done. It seemed to feed his craving for notoriety.
Ryan wanted people to remember him. In his mind, this was no longer just a private collapse. It had become some kind of performance, one final scene where he imagined the world would finally pay attention. Later, when that recording was played in court, everyone heard how cold and detached the young actor sounded as he described taking his own mother’s life.
There was no panic in his voice, no visible shock, no natural human reaction that anyone would expect after something so unthinkable. Some psychologists believed this could point to a break from reality, suggesting Ryan may not have fully understood the weight of what he had done, but Grantham himself pushed back against that idea. The recording ended with Ryan standing in front of a mirror in his bedroom in a frightened voice.
He said, “You just shot your mother in the back of the head.” “And you think you’re so cool.” Whether that was the first sign of regret, no one could say for sure. Maybe the reality of it had finally started to reach him, or maybe he was still speaking to himself like an actor trapped inside a scene he had created. After that, Grantham moved on to the next part of his awful plan.
At 7:15 p.m., Ryan got into his car and drove to a nearby gas station. There, he filled a large container with gasoline, then returned home with the intention of preparing incendiary bottles. He spent the rest of the evening filling glass bottles with flammable liquid, slowly preparing for what he believed would come next.
All the while, he smoked, drank beer, and watched television while his mother’s body lay only a few feet away. The contrast is almost impossible to understand. an ordinary living room, a TV playing in the background, and Barbara lying there under the weight of what her own son had done. The next morning, Ryan woke up and ate breakfast as if it were any normal day.
After that, he carried out a kind of farewell ritual over his mother’s body. He placed rosary beads on the piano, so they hung above Barbara, lit candles, said a few prayers, and covered her with a white sheet. I’m so sorry, Mom. I hate myself, Grantham wrote in his diary that day. The media writes a lot about me.
I appeared in movies and on TV a lot, but no one will ever understand why I did it. After saying goodbye, Grantham went outside. He loaded two rifles, a shotgun, several incendiary bottles, and survival supplies into his car. At that point, he was not just running away from what he had done.
He was preparing to continue. Ryan even made a playlist for the drive. Then he set out with the plan to target Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. He was also thinking about carrying out an attack against random people afterward. So Ryan started driving toward his target. But there was one major problem. Trudeau lived in Ottawa while Grantham was near Vancouver.
To reach the prime minister’s residence, Ryan would have needed to spend about 50 hours on the road. Even so, Ryan began that long drive with the intention of carrying out his dark plan. But after heading east for about 3 hours and traveling roughly 125 mi to the town of Hope, he suddenly changed direction. He turned the car around and drove back toward Vancouver.
It seems Ryan finally realized he was not some unstoppable figure and that reaching the prime minister would be much harder than taking the life of his own mother. The fantasy he had built in his head started running into reality and reality was far more complicated. But he still had not given up. A new plan was already forming in his mind.
Grantham started considering other options. First, he thought about driving to Vancouver’s famous Lion’s Gate Bridge, stopping his car, blocking traffic, throwing incendiary bottles, and opening fire on people. Then, Ryan considered going to his university campus and carrying out a mass attack there with the goal of spreading as much fear and panic as possible.
Sitting in his car near the campus, Grantham smoked and went over every detail in his mind. He pictured exactly how he would move, what he would do, and how everything might unfold. But then something inside him seemed to shift. Ryan backed away from the idea of hurting random people and decided instead that he would end his own life.
He placed the pistol against his head, but almost immediately he realized he could not make himself go through with it. So he started the car again and drove to the nearest police station to turn himself in. “I killed my mother,” he told the officer at the front desk. While Grantham was confessing to police, his older sister, Lisa, had already started worrying about their mom.
Barbara had not answered any calls or text messages, so Lisa decided to go to the townhouse and check on her herself. She used her key to get inside, and what she found there was beyond defitating. Barbara’s body was lying on the floor, covered with a white sheet. There was blood throughout the room.
Rosary beads were hanging from the piano, and the remains of candles were still around her. It was Lisa, Barbara’s daughter, who’d had to walk into that scene and find her mother that way. She immediately called the police. When detectives arrived at the family home, they searched the property and found Ryan’s camera.
On it, they discovered the video confession he had recorded after taking his mother’s life. After finding her mother in such a traumatic way, Lisa suffered from PTSD for a long time. She struggled deeply with the loss of Barbara and with the way everything had happened. The trauma affected her so badly that she even lost her job as a lawyer.
Until the very end, Lisa could hardly believe that her own brother had turned against the woman who would have given anything for him. What hurt Lisa the most was that Ryan had not even given their mother a chance to react or defend herself. He had approached her while her back was turned. The once promising actor was arrested and charged in connection with Barbara Wait’s death.
Then the legal process began. Ryan’s defense team tried to argue that he was not mentally sound at the time, pointing to the serious mental health struggles he had been dealing with. His lawyer said Ryan’s actions were connected to a mental disorder, including severe clinical depression, but after several psychiatrists evaluated him, Ryan was found legally sane.
He did have mental health disorders, but at the time of the crime, he understood what he was doing. He knew the difference between right and wrong. Because of that, the court ruled that he was responsible for his actions. The prosecution said Ryan had committed a heartbreaking betrayal of trust. Barbara had been a wonderful mother and Ryan had no reason to fear her or see her as a threat.
Ryan Grantham fully admitted what he had done. He told police that he could not allow his mother to witness the harm he planned to bring into the world and then turn on himself. Because he admitted guilt, he avoided a full trial. In the end, Ryan was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 14 years. That meant he could potentially be released when he was 37 years old.
For many people, even the possibility of his release was frightening, especially because he had also planned a larger public attack. After all, Ryan had taken his mother’s life because, in his own distorted thinking, he did not want her to learn about his dark plans or feel disappointed in him.
During sentencing, the court also gave Grantham a lifetime ban on owning or using firearms. In prison, Ryan began receiving psychological help behind bars. He was forced to sit with the consequences of what he had done. He said he hoped to spend the rest of his life trying to make amends. It hurts to think how wastefully I spent my life, he said at the time.
In the face of such a horrific tragedy, apologizing feels pointless. With my whole being, I ask for forgiveness. With his voice breaking, Ryan Grantham told the court that there was no excuse for taking the life of his own mother. Ryan did not seem shocked by the verdict. His lawyer later said in an interview that Grantham had expected this outcome, but the attorney also worried that prison would be especially difficult for him because of his short stature and thin build.
Behind bars, Ryan could face physical, psychological, and even sexual violence. But the young actor probably was not thinking about any of that when he raised the rifle toward his mother. Ryan Grandantham had shown real promise in the film industry from the time he was a child. If he had not fallen into addiction and refused to face adulthood in a healthy way, maybe his career could have become something much bigger.
But there is also another possibility. Maybe his small role in a hit series was always going to be the highest point of his acting career. And now, instead of being remembered for his work on screen, many people know him as the young man who took the life of the person closest to him. If you stayed with me until the end, then you are a real true crime fan.
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