Riverdale killer Ryan Grantham terrified baby face makes him prison target

"We don’t send people to prison so they can be punished by other prisoners.”

Ryan Grantham rode his baby face and small frame to small-screen success on the smash hit Riverdale.

But now, the 24-year-old convicted killer is terrified those physical qualities will make him a target for jailhouse rapists, his lawyer told Fox News.

Grantham pleaded guilty to murdering his mother, Barbara Waite, in a shooting at her British Columbia home. The second-degree murder conviction means he can’t apply for parole until he’s served 14 years in the slammer.

That’s a lot of sleepless nights in a maximum-security prison.

“When people plead guilty to a crime, it doesn’t mean they’re saying, ‘Sure, I’ll be raped and abused by other prisoners.’ That’s not part of the deal,” his lawyer, Chris Johnson, told Fox News.

Johnson added that even Justice Kathleen Ker — who oversaw Grantham’s case — worried that the killer could be in grave jeopardy in a maximum-security prison. She asked that the fallen thespian be sent to a medium-security joint instead.

Grantham, who was a child star in the movie Diary of a Wimpy Kid, “looks like a 17-year-old,” his lawyer said of his 5-foot-2, “about 100-pounds” client.

“My biggest concern is that he will be preyed upon by other prisoners and perhaps abused by them,” Johnson said.

“We send people to prison to be both punished and rehabilitated. And so I’m hopeful that the latter can take place. We don’t send people to prison so they can be punished by other prisoners.”

Despite the judge’s concerns, it is the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) that will determine which jailhouse Grantham will serve his time in.

Johnson said his next move is a request to CSC to have Grantham sent to a low-security prison.

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Grantham shot his mother in the back of the head while she played piano at home on March 31, 2020.

In addition, the troubled former actor also planned to kill Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. After murdering his 64-year-old mother, he loaded the family car with three guns, a dozen Molotov cocktails and enough ammo to trigger a small war.

But after driving east for several hours, he abandoned the Trudeau assassination scheme. He pondered unleashing carnage at Simon Fraser University.

Instead, he drove to a nearby police station and confessed to murdering his mother.

According to cops, Grantham killed her “to spare her from seeing the violence he intended to commit” on the world and himself.

bhunter@postmedia.com

@HunterTOSun