Daughter eager for boyfriend-killing dad's release
The daughter of the Yorkton, Sask., man who shot her boyfriend to death says she's ready to move on and can't wait for her father to get out of prison.
Jadah Walker was 16 and living with James Hayward, 24, on March 17, 2003, when her father Kim came over to his house, pulled out a pistol and shot Hayward multiple times, killing him almost instantly.
On Wednesday, Kim Walker, 54, was sentenced to eight years in prison for manslaughter, but with time already served factored in, the net sentence was 18 months.
Jadah Walker, who attended court throughout the trial and sentencing, said her family is trying to rebuild and her father has owned up to what he did.
"My father, he is a great father. He is a phenomenal grandfather," she told CBC News on Thursday. "I'm really looking forward to my dad coming home."
She reserved little sympathy for Hayward, who she said injected her with drugs after she moved in with him.
"He was an adult and I was an impressionable teenager," she said.
Meanwhile, for the Hayward family, the pain continues.
Hayward's mother Lorrie Getty said she's trying to put the trial behind her, but she'll never get over the loss of her son.
"I would gladly give my life in one second for this not to have happened," said Getty, who described her son as a "wonderful, wonderful person."
Getty said the jury came to the wrong verdict and should have convicted Walker of murder, not manslaughter.
She said she's frustrated that untrue things were said about her son during the trial, but he had no chance to defend his reputation.
Everybody else connected with the case got a chance to turn his or her life around, but not her son, she said.
Although the Walkers have characterized her son as a hard drug dealer, that wasn't true, she said.
Late in his life, he became addicted to hard drugs, and he sold marijuana, but that was it, she said.
"I'd want [the public] to know he wasn't her pusher," she said.
At trial, the defence's case was that Kim Walker had been threatened by Hayward, feared for his life and that of family members and acted out of self-defence.
The Crown argued the killing was murder, noting that Walker loaded his handgun and fired 10 shots at the unarmed Hayward, hitting him five times. A number of people witnessed the shooting and testified at the trial, including Jadah.
Walker said he had no memory of the actual shooting, but accepts that he killed Hayward.
It had been the second trial for Walker. In the first, he was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with no parole eligibility for 10 years.
An appeal court set that verdict aside, after ruling that some discussions involving the trial judge and lawyers were held without Walker being present.
Following Wednesday's sentencing, neither the Crown nor defence indicated that a further appeal was likely.
