Pubdate: Sat, 20 Jan 2007
Source: National Post (Canada)
Copyright: 2007 Southam Inc.
Contact:  http://www.nationalpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/286
Author: James Wood, CanWest News Service

MAN JAILED FOR KILLING DAUGHTER'S BOYFRIEND

Minimum 10 Years: 'You Were Operating Under Terrible Anguish'

YORKTON, SASK. - A father who murdered his daughter's drug-dealing
boyfriend has been found guilty of second-degree murder and will spend
at least 10 years in jail.

"This is not a happy day for anyone," Justice Jennifer Pritchard told
Kim Walker. "I am satisfied you were operating under terrible anguish."

But Judge Pritchard told Walker he was wrong in thinking shooting
James Hayward was his only option. "You were a desperate man. In
saving your daughter, you wrongfully and unnecessarily took the life
of another human being."

After hearing the verdict, Walker's daughter, Jadah, now 20, made an
audible sob and held her head in her hands. She later said her father
will always be her hero for saving her life. "He's a walking, living
miracle," she said outside the courthouse.

Her 50-year-old father looked alert and sat upright before the verdict
was announced, then put his head forward, turned red and grimaced.

A Court of Queen's Bench jury, which came back late yesterday
afternoon after deliberating for two days, recommended the minimum
sentence, life in prison with first eligibility for parole in 10
years. Judge Pritchard accepted the recommendation.

Mr. Hayward's family seemed pleased, nodding their heads when the
verdict was read.

The defence argued Walker was a concerned father trying to rescue his
then-16-year-old daughter from a drug addiction that was threatening
to kill her after she had left the family home and moved in with Mr.
Hayward.

Both Mr. Hayward, a sometime award-winning bodybuilder who sold
marijuana and had been convicted of trafficking, and Jadah were using
morphine.

In March, 2003, Mr. Hayward bled to death in his house after being
shot five times by Walker, once in the back at close range.

Facing a first-degree murder charge, Walker testified he didn't
remember the shooting. He admitted causing Mr. Hayward's death but
said he did not intend to kill him.

But the prosecution characterized Walker as a murderer who planned
before shooting an unarmed man.

After Mr. Hayward's death, Jadah graduated from school and got a
job.

"I'm very thankful and lucky that I have parents that care as much as
they do, otherwise I wouldn't be here today," she said in a statement
this week.

Mr. Hayward's stepsister, Alana Getty, and her sister, Kendra, said
outside court that there was no evidence Jadah was on death's door.
They said Mr. Hayward was also in need of help for his own morphine
addiction.

"No one knows what might have happened if James had not been killed.
Perhaps they both could have been saved, but no one was given the
opportunity to save James.

"Drug addiction is a serious and difficult problem to
resolve."

They said the family expects there will be an appeal. That seems
increasingly likely after Judge Pritchard rejected a defence motion
for a mistrial.

In her charge to the jury, the judge directed them to find Walker
guilty of at least manslaughter.

However, while the jury was still deliberating, Walker's lawyer said
the judge had erred and asked for a mistrial. He cited a unanimous
Supreme Court decision from last October in which the court ruled a
judge can't take away a jury's ability to acquit.

Judge Pritchard chose to neither recharge the jury nor declare a
mistrial.
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