Pubdate: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 Source: Yorkton This Week (CN SN) Copyright: 2007 Yorkton This Week Contact: http://www.yorktonthisweek.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2543 Author: Ann Harvey, YTW Staff Writer JURY TO BE CHARGED TODAY IN MURDER TRIAL Crown and defence lawyers concluded their summations on Tuesday and the justice was to charge the jury this morning in Kim Walker' trial for first degree murder. Walker, a 50-year-old Yorkton man is accused of fatally shooting 24-year-old James Hayward in front of his daughter on March 17, 2003. He is being tried in the Court of Queen's Bench in Yorkton. The Leader Post reports for the first six days of the trial are summarized: On Tuesday, with jury selection completed, Crown prosecutor Daryl Bode made his opening statement. He told the eight-woman, four-man jury that he would call about 15 witnesses who would testify that Walker went to Hayward's Yorkton home and shot him multiple times, once in the back. The first witness RCMP CPL. Kevin Shearer, a Yorkton forensic identification unit member, played a video showing the crime scene and gave the jury a booklet containing photographs of the crime scene and drug paraphernalia. In response to questions from defence lawyer Morris Bodnar of Saskatoon, Shearer said he had heard Hayward was a drug dealer and Hayward's home was a drug house. On Wednesday witness Jessica Wonitowy said she had been best friends with Walker's daughter, Jadah Walker, for two years before the shooting. In response to Bode's questioning, she said she had written an anonymous letter to Walker and his wife, Elizabeth, the week before the shooting, telling them Jadah was slowing killing herself by injecting morphine with Hayward and need their help. She said the parents were not aware of their daughter's drug use before they got her letter. The Walkers applied to Provincial Court for a Mental Health Act warrant and Jadah Walker spent the weekend before the shooting confined in the psychiatric ward at Yorkton's hospital for assessment. Then that Monday, Wonitowy and three male friends reunited her with Hayward at his house. Shortly before that Kim Walker came to the house to take his daughter back. Hayward told the father to leave and Walker shot him with a pistol, Winotowy said. She said Jadah loved Hayward and wanted to marry him. In his evidence RCMP Sgt. Scott McMurchy, who was stationed in Yorkton then, presented items including 10 bullet casings found at the house and five bullets or parts of bullets taken from Hayward's body. RCMP Cpl. Catherine Shepherd, who was a then a Yorkton plainclothes investigator, said she had talked to the Walkers and explained their options including getting the Mental Health Act warrant. In response to Bodnar's cross examination she said she wanted to help the family but also saw an opportunity to get more information on Hayward, a man the RCMP suspected for using selling and importing drugs. Court was told Hayward had a criminal record of three drug-related offences. On the day of the shooting Shepherd and other officers were just minutes away from executing a warrant to search Hayward's house for a weapon used in an armed robbery. She said police did not feel they had enough information to get a warrant for a narcotics search. In response to Bodnar's questions Shepherd said RCMP seized a pornographic video of Hayward and Jadah Walker. On Thursday the court heard testimony that both the accused and the victim had talked of harming each other. Wonitowy said that four days before the shooting Walker had said if he didn't have a family and a little boy he would love to kill Hayward. She said Hayward had been angry when the Walkers had Jadah walker committed for a psychiatric assessment because of her drug use and using that weekend had talked about beating Kim Walker with a baseball bat. He also talked about talking Jadah out of the province, away from her family if that's what she wanted. Three witnesses - Mitch Steininger, Kevin Yaremko and Joey Austman - testified they went to Hayward's home and were there when Walker arrived and the shooting occurred. The three, who were high school students at the time, said Hayward was a nice guy. Holland and Davis said he was an award-winning bodybuilder whose own use of morphine had considerably reduced his size by the time of his death. Previous witnesses said Jadah Walker lost about 40 pounds because of her morphine use. Holland said both Hayward and Jadah Walker became less social and would often stay in their bedroom. In response to the defence counsel's questions Winotowy said on the advice of friends Hayward had been considering breaking up with Jadah. On Friday the court heard Dr. Dino Grammatica, who performed the autopsy on Hayward. The witness aid the five-foot, eight-inch and 160 pound Hayward had five gunshot wounds - in his left arm, his chest and once in his lower back. He said not needle marks were found on Hayward's arm but he was aware morphine was found in Hayward's system. The court was also told that the pistol found at the scene of the shooting was a nine-millimetre Luger M80 semi-automatic. On Monday, Kim Walker testified that he didn't remember shooting Hayward. He said the shooting followed a series of threatening phone calls made by Hayward. Under cross examination by Bodnar, Walker said he never intended to kill Hayward. Walker said he thought he remembered Hayward holding Jadah by a shoulder and being scared by the look of hatred on Hayward's face as he approached him. He said he didn't remember taking the a pistol from the secured gun room of his home, entering the Hayward home, firing his firearm or being arrested. Walker said that in the fall of 2002 Jadah's attitudes changed and she became disrespectful. After an RCMP officer advised him to show tough love he kicked her out and she moved in with Hayward. He said on the Friday that RCMP arrested Jadah on the Mental Health Act warrant, he got a phone call from Hayward who said Walker was dead because he was interfering in Hayward's business. - --- MAP posted-by: Elaine