A 49-year-old chilly occasion homicide was laid to relaxation inside a Calgary court docket room on Monday with each the superior and his teen goal’s little woman– that was merely 7 months previous on the time of her mother’s fatality– speaking brazenly for the very first time as a result of homicide prices had been launched.
Originally billed with homicide, Ronald James Edwards, at the moment 75 years of ages, begged responsible to wrongful dying within the lethal stabbing of Pauline Brazeau, a 16-year-old that was eradicated in 1976.
Court of King’s Bench Justice Robert Armstrong accredited district lawyer Patrick Bigg and safety lawyer Pawel Milczarek’s joint proposition for a 6 1/2- yr sentence.
Edwards has 4 1/2 years entrusted to supply with credit score rating for the time he’s invested captive.
Both Brazeau and Edwards are of Métis heritage.
‘There are no memories’
“There are no memories,” claimed Brazeau’s little woman Tracy, testing from a sufferer affect declaration. “Nothing shared between her and I, no laughs, no smiles.
“We really did not obtain the possibility to share the love of a mommy and little girl.”
In 2023, Edwards, who was 26 years previous on the time of the killing, was arrested at his Sundre residence after investigative genetic family tree (IGG) work accomplished by each RCMP and Calgary cops.
‘I’m sorry’
A smaller man with darkish hair and a protracted gray beard, Edwards was supplied the prospect to deal with the court docket on Monday. He supplied a tearful apology to Tracy.
“I’m sorry that your mom was drawn from you prior to you had an opportunity to understand her,” he stated.
” I used to be an inebriated boy … I don’t consider I can actually feeling something, I merely consumed them away.”
In 1976, Brazeau had simply moved to Calgary from Yorkton, Sask., along with her toddler.
She was hanging out with family and friends on the night time of Jan. 8 and into the early morning hours of Jan. 9, 1976.
The group ate at Peppe’s Pizza on seventeenth Avenue. Brazeau misplaced her gloves and returned alone to search for them round 3:30 a.m.
Details of the crime come from an agreed assertion of details learn aloud by Bigg.
According to the doc, Edwards was driving round within the space of seventeenth Avenue and Second Street that night time and picked up his sufferer, believing she was a prostitute.
Teen stabbed, left alone to die
In search of a abandoned highway, Edwards drove her outdoors Calgary metropolis limits, the place the 2 had ” consensual sexual relations,” in accordance with the agreed assertion of details.
Edwards was drunk that night time ” and doesn’t keep in mind a number of info of what occurred.”
He’s admitted to utilizing a four-inch buck knife, stabbing Brazeau outdoors of his automobile. Assuming she was lifeless, Edwards drove away.
Hours later, two hunters found Brazeau’s physique on Jumping Pound Road, about 20 kilometres west of town.
Nine stab wounds
She was fully bare however for a black coat protecting a part of her decrease physique.
Her blood stained clothes was close by.
An post-mortem decided Brazeau had defensive wounds on her palms and had been stabbed 9 occasions.
The first ” substantial examination” went chilly. Police revisited the case quite a few occasions In the a long time that adopted.
By the mid-Nineties, police had a DNA profile of their suspect based mostly on a semen swab taken from Brazeau’s physique after her dying. In 2022, investigators used IGG to search out relations of the killer, figuring out Edwards as their suspect.
‘Very rewarding’
On Oct. 17, 2022, officers grabbed a glass mug utilized by Edwards from the Sundre A&W, examined it and confirmed it was a match to the profile of their suspect.
Each of Brazeau’s 5 relations who wrote influence statements thanked the RCMP and Calgary police for sticking with the case.
“It’s extremely gratifying to listen to as a policeman that serviced the instance, yet likewise we need to recognize that it’s not simply the police officers today. It was the police officers that went to the scene in 1976. It was the police officers from job pressures in the ’90s along with 2000s,” stated Sgt. Ferrah Yeager with the RCMP’s historic murder unit.
“It’s impressive to see a resolution to something that’s 49 years of ages.”
