Pubdate: Sat, 20 Jan 2007
Source: StarPhoenix, The (CN SN)
Copyright: 2007 The StarPhoenix
Contact: http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix/letters.html
Website: http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/400
Author: James Wood, The StarPhoenix

JURY FINDS WALKER GUILTY OF MURDER

Yorkton Man Will Have To Serve 10 Years Before Parole Eligibility;
Daughter Callsfather 'A Walkingliving Miracle'

YORKTON -- Kim Walker has his daughter's love but he no longer has his
freedom.

A tearful Jadah Walker said her father will always be her hero after a
jury found him guilty Friday of second-degree murder for gunning down
her drug-dealer boyfriend, James Hayward, nearly four years ago.

After the 50-year-old welder and father of three had been taken into
custody by RCMP officers for the first time since being released on
bail shortly after the shooting occurred on March 17, 2003, a
distraught Jadah said her father had saved her life.

"He's a walking, living miracle," she said outside the courthouse as
she walked with her mother and older brother to a waiting van.

The verdict comes with a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment, but
Justice Jennifer Pritchard ordered Walker eligible for parole in 10
years, the minimum time allowed for second-degree murder, as
recommended by the eight-woman, four-man jury.

Hayward, 24, bled to death from five gunshot wounds -- one in the back
at close range -- after Walker came to Hayward's home and shot him in
front of Jadah.

The nine-day trial focused national attention on this city of 17,000
people as the defence portrayed Walker as a despairing father trying
to rescue his then 16-year-old daughter from a life-threatening drug
addiction and a toxic relationship with the older man she lived with.

Walker's wife Elizabeth called Hayward "a dirty scumbag" just before
getting into the waiting vehicle.

But Hayward's family and friends paint a very different picture of a
kind man who shared with Jadah Walker a debilitating morphine
addiction but never received his own chance to turn his life around.

They've been troubled by the support Walker has received from many
Yorkton residents and what they saw as a demonization of their son in
the media.

Hayward, at one time an award-winning bodybuilder, sold marijuana and
had been convicted of trafficking and other drug-related charges.

While the Crown had asked for a verdict of first-degree murder,
meaning the killing was planned and deliberate, Hayward family members
expressed relief Walker was not found guilty of the lesser charge of
manslaughter.

Hayward's mother, Moose Jaw resident Lorrie Getty, said justice had
been done, but it was neither justice nor revenge she truly wanted.

"I just want James back," she told reporters.

"We loved him so much and I hope no one ever feels this pain, because
you will never be the same," she said as she clutched the small
stuffed toy fox she held as she sat through the trial.

In an interview earlier Friday, Getty said the fox represented her
son, who as a child had loved the Disney movie The Fox and the Hound.

Hayward's stepsister Alana Getty said the family has had a long wait
for justice and is prepared to deal with a lengthy appeal process.

Defence lawyer Morris Bodnar told reporters he would file an appeal as
soon as he can, with one basis being that Pritchard had not allowed
Walker to claim self-defence.

The other grounds for appeal is that Pritchard erred in her charge to
the jury when she instructed them that acquittal was not an option and
that they must find Walker guilty of either manslaughter or
first-degree or second-degree murder, said the Saskatoon lawyer.

Bodnar had called for a mistrial late Thursday evening based on the
Supreme Court of Canada's unanimous decision in October 2006, when it
ruled medical marijuana activist Grant Krieger -- who ironically once
lived an hour away from Yorkton in Preeceville -- was entitled to a
new trial because an Alberta judge had directed a jury that it must
find Krieger guilty of marijuana trafficking.

The high court ruled a judge could not take away a jury's ability to
acquit.

Pritchard said it was "terribly unfortunate" that neither she, Bodnar
nor Crown prosecutor Daryl Bode were aware of the Krieger decision
case before the charge to the jury.

She suggested she could recharge the jury with new instructions that
they could acquit but it would not be based on the law.

But that move was adamantly opposed by both lawyers in the
case.

Pritchard ruled Friday morning she would not allow a mistrial, nor
would she reinstruct the jury.

Bodnar said he would discuss with Walker whether he would ask for him
to be released on bail pending the appeal being heard, but
acknowledged that is rare in a murder conviction.

In court Friday, Walker sat upright and alert-looking as he waited for
the jury. A gasp went through the courtroom when the verdict was read
and Walker, a short man with greying red hair and beard, leaned
slightly forward with a pained look on his face.

In addressing Walker, Pritchard appeared to accept the
characterization of the father of three put forward by the defence.

She said he may well have believed killing Hayward was his only option
to save Jadah, but he was terribly wrong.

"You were a desperate man," she said.

"In saving your daughter, you wrongfully and unnecessarily took the
life of another human being."

The court heard testimony that the shooting followed months of growing
concern over Jadah's health and behaviour, culminating in an anonymous
letter to Walker and his wife in March 2003 telling them their
daughter and Hayward were injecting morphine.

Acting on the advice of the RCMP, the couple had Jadah committed under
a Mental Health Act warrant for assessment of her drug problem at the
Yorkton hospital's psychiatric ward over the weekend.

But on the Monday of her release, Jadah Walker was picked up by
friends and reunited with Hayward at his house.

The court has heard that on hearing this, Walker left his home with a
Luger M80 semi-automatic pistol and extra ammunition. After asking a
resistant Jadah to come home, he shot Hayward in front of his daughter
and other witnesses.

Walker testified he remembers only "flashes" of the incident and
nothing of the actual shooting.
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