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a Calgary court docket room on Monday with each the superior and his teen goal’s little lady– that was merely 7 months outdated on the time of her mother’s fatality– speaking overtly for the very first time as a result of homicide prices have been launched.
Originally billed with homicide, Ronald James Edwards, presently 75 years of ages, begged responsible to wrongful demise within the lethal stabbing of Pauline Brazeau, a 16-year-old that was eradicated in 1976.
Court of King’s Bench Justice Robert Armstrong authorized district legal professional Patrick Bigg and safety legal professional 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 lady Tracy, trying out 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In 2023, Edwards, who was 26 years outdated on the time of the killing, was arrested at his Sundre dwelling after investigative genetic family tree (IGG) work performed by each RCMP and Calgary law enforcement officials.
‘I’m sorry’
A smaller man with darkish hair and an extended gray beard, Edwards was provided the possibility to deal with the court docket on Monday. He provided 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 mentioned.
” I used to be an inebriated boy … I don’t imagine I can actually feeling something, I merely consumed them away.”
In 1976, Brazeau had simply moved to Calgary from Yorkton, Sask., together 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 street, Edwards drove her exterior Calgary metropolis limits, the place the 2 had ” consensual sexual relations,” in response to the agreed assertion of details.
Edwards was drunk that night time ” and doesn’t keep in mind a number of data of what occurred.”
He’s admitted to utilizing a four-inch buck knife, stabbing Brazeau exterior of his car. Assuming she was useless, Edwards drove away.
Hours later, two hunters found Brazeau’s physique on Jumping Pound Road, about 20 kilometres west of the town.
Nine stab wounds
She was utterly bare however for a black coat masking 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-Nineteen Nineties, police had a DNA profile of their suspect primarily based on a semen swab taken from Brazeau’s physique after her demise. In 2022, investigators used IGG to seek out kin 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 impression 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,” mentioned 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.”
