Yup, it's true.
I was working the other day, and a lady phoned and told me she was a reporter with the Post. She wanted to know what the general mood was surrounding the Yorkton murder trial. How am I supposed to know? We did do a little bit of it on the show that morning and she heard about that so she tried me.... all I knew was what we heard on the show. I certainly don't know what the mood is in Yorkton, Saskatchewan.
But here is the article, and I must admit I sound pretty wise for my young age..... it's about a third of the way down.
Father killed to save daughter, jury told
Saskatchewan welder to be judged a hero or a vigilante in drug dealer's slaying
Anne Marie Owens
National Post, with files from CanWest News Service
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
When he shows up at court in the small Saskatchewan town where he lives with his wife and three children, Kim Walker looks like an average small-town labourer, a bearded 50-year-old welder unaccustomed to appearing at a courthouse, a family man whose answers are soft-spoken under questioning.
To the jury hearing evidence in his first-degree murder case, however, Mr. Walker is either a hero father who saved his daughter from the ravaging death of a drug addict or a small-town vigilante who took the law into his own hands.
The man charged with killing the 24-year-old drug dealer he believed was leading his teenage daughter astray is the focus of a debate that has consumed this town of about 17,000 over how far a parent can go in rescuing their child from harm, and whether parental concern can ever justify criminal action.
With the jury expected to begin its deliberations today, the discussion over what some portray as a case of parental vigilantism is gaining resonance far beyond Yorkton, a community in east central Saskatchewan on the Trans-Canada Yellowhead highway.
"Your kid is hooked up with someone you don't want -- how far do you go in trying to protect?" says Tom Dukovac, producer of John Gormley's popular Saskatchewan call-in show that tackled the topic yesterday, who expects that callers will have an outpouring of opinion once the verdict is delivered.
"There's this view that here's
this average guy at the centre of a parent's-worst-nightmare situation, you know?"
The reaction that appears on the blog of Tim Dormain, an Albertan who writes about the news "from a conservative Christian perspective," is typical: He quotes at length from reports about the Yorkton murder case, highlighting those that focus on a family taking desperate measures to get their daughter away from trouble, and offers this conclusion: "There was a time in Canada when the system would have protected a 16-year-old girl from a 24-year-old male, let alone a morphine-addicted drug dealer."
In their closing arguments to the jury yesterday, the lawyers on both sides delivered polarized perspectives on the moral question that has so captivated the community, and possibly, the jurors.
Defence lawyer Morris Bodnar described Mr. Walker's actions as those of a parent intent on saving his daughter from a death from drug addiction and, in doing so, his motivations fulfilled the parental obligations demanded of society.
"If she had died, what would you have said? 'Where were the parents?' " said Mr. Bodnar, a high-profile defence lawyer who defended former Reform politician Jack Ramsay and who was himself a member of Parliament.
He told the jurors they would be sending the wrong message if they convicted his client of murder, and told them that the victim in the shooting, James Hayward, was "killing people" by selling drugs.
"He was that close to killing that girl in the front r o w," he said, pointing to Jadah Walker, now 20, who was sitting with family members.
Mr. Hayward, a one-time bodybuilder who at the time of his death was living in what police describe as "a known drug house" in the town, may not have been the kind of person a father wants hanging around his daughter, but he too, "was somebody's son," said Daryl Bode, the Crown prosecutor.
He said the law does not allow for any consideration of "a second- class murder victim ? The moment we devalue life, that's the moment we betray ourselves."
Karl Kopan, the editor of the Yorkton News Review, the town's newspaper, said it has been difficult for people not to take sides in a community so small.
The victim's mother has sat in the courtroom, wiping away tears and clutching a stuffed animal, bolstered by supporters; the Walker family says it has been overwhelmed by the support of townsfolk who have dropped by meals and cards.
"It has touched a lot of people, because, by all accounts, this was a father doing his best to work and to raise his kids in this town," Mr. Kopan said. "I think everybody can identify with some portion of this trial, especially if you have kids, and you know that you can only control your kids so much. And then when you think about what can happen.?"
According to the evidence in the case, Kim Walker and his wife first suspected their teenage daughter was running with a bad crowd and using drugs and alcohol in 2002, when her attitude toward her family and to school suddenly changed.
Jadah was 16, and there were times, too many to count, where they had no idea where she was, or whether she was safe or not.
At one point, the court was told, the police showed up at the family's house after Jadah had "a terrible fight" with her mother.
The officers advised the distraught parents to take a tough love approach to their errant teen.
She ended up moving out of the family home and eventually lived with Mr. Hayward, who had been convicted of drug-related offences and served seven months in jail for trafficking.
Their concern escalated with the revelation, contained in an anonymous letter delivered in March, 2003, that Jadah was addicted to morphine, and was "slowly killing herself " by injecting the drug with her then-boyfriend.
The Walkers turned to the RCMP for help, and then to a provincial court, where they ended up getting a warrant under
the Mental Health Act to have Jadah committed for a short term assessment.
She was released from the psychiatric ward and returned to her parents' house, but a few hours later, was back again with Mr. Hayward at his house.
Mr. Walker has testified that his recollection is spotty about the events on that night in March when Mr. Hayward was shot repeatedly. He said he does not remember taking a pistol from his house, entering the drug house where his daughter was staying, or firing his gun.
A witness in the house at the time testified during the trial that Mr. Walker began shooting within just a few seconds of confronting the younger man about taking his daughter away.
"I'm pretty sure he emptied the whole gun at once. It was continuous," the witness said.
Evidence suggests that the 9- mm Luger M80 pistol was fired 10 times and that Mr. Hayward bled to death from five gunshot wounds.
Jadah Walker, who is now 20, graduated from high school and became a manager of a store in the town.
She has been attending her father's murder trial with her family and was in court when Mr. Walker testified that his relationship with his daughter now is "wonderful."
So there you have it. My day in the national newspaper.
