Emotions were running high outside the Invermere Law Courts Monday, as family members and friends of three young men killed in an alleged drunk driving crash awaited the first court appearance for the suspect charged in their deaths.
Haley Jade Watson, who turns 23 this year, is accused of three counts of impaired driving causing death and three counts of dangerous driving causing death in the July 9, 2024 collision in B.C.’s Columbia Valley.
“I really needed to see Haley and I think she needed to see us and the grief she’s caused for so many people, friends, family,” said Janet Dahl-Freeman.
Dahl-Freeman’s 25-year-old son Jackson Freeman, Gavin Murray, 21, and Brady Tardif, 25, died when the truck they were riding in went off the highway and down an embankment on Westside Road near Panorama Drive in Wilmer, B.C.
Police allege speed and intoxication were contributing factors. Photos obtained by Global News show the Toyota Tundra involved was a flattened, mangled wreck when it arrived at the tow yard.
The suspect survived but was initially hospitalized with what RCMP believed to be “serious, non-life-threatening injuries”.
“What she’s done to this community and families – no parent should ever have to go through that,” Dahl-Freeman told Global News in an interview Monday.
The tragedy has devastated the tight-knit Columbia Valley and Sherwood Park, AB, where one of the three young victims lived.
Dozens of friends and community members showed up to support the victims’ families outside the courthouse.
“It was important for everyone as a family, as an extended family,” friend Quentin Nicholas said. “We’re not all family but it feels like we are with the tragedy.”
“It was a big, big hit for all the friends cause we were together four days of the week almost,” Gage Martin told Global News.
“All the time,” added Nicholas.
Martin remembers fishing, hunting and golfing with Tardif, who he considered a brother, and Murray, who he grew up playing hockey with.
“You don’t realize how short that time is until it’s over,” Martin said.
Martin said Murray leaves behind two sisters who will carry on his “legacy” while Tardif’s fiancée and young son will keep his memory alive.
Dahl-Freeman said her son, who’d achieved his dream by earning his Red Seal in carpentry, was kind and very compassionate.
“If people asked him to help he was always there, he just was an outstanding person,” recalled Dahl-Freeman.
Freeman excelled at lacrosse and played for the Pewee, Bantam and Midget A clubs with the Sherwood Park Titans before he was drafted by the Junior A St. Albert Miners.
His mother said the Titans’ organization has since established a memorial scholarship in his name, acknowledging not only his accomplishments as a goalie – but his growth off the field.
According to the Sherwood Park Titans website, the Jackson Freeman Memorial Award will honour a graduate student who will go the extra mile to help those in need and spread kindness with their positive energy in all facets of life. “This was Jackson’s mission in life. Please make it yours.”
Watson arrived outside the courthouse on Jan. 13 in an SUV driven by another woman, but never entered the building.
Instead, the vehicle sat parked for several minutes and a sheriff was seen speaking with its occupants.
The BC Prosecution Service said a lawyer attended court representing the accused, who was not inside the courtroom.
The woman who drove Watson to court drove away honking at the crowd before her SUV got stuck in the snowy parking lot. Sheriffs jumped in to dig the vehicle out.
Watson’s next court appearance is scheduled for Feb. 10. Court records indicate it is an application for a warrant.
“We want to see justice,” Nicholas told Global News. “We want to see that they didn’t die for no reason.”