COURAGE FLAG RAISED

 I woke this morning to a calendar alert from my phone simply labelled JS sentencing. Originally set for this day is September, it had be postponed two months until today.

As you know, I don't mention is name here but it is hoped that his sentencing today offers #JusticeForAshley. My beautiful coworker he murdered in January 2023.

I tried to log into the courtroom hearing this morning, only to discover that his sentencing would not be issued virtually. In turn, I have been checking Collingwood Today, every fifteen minutes, in hopes of finally hearing his fate. 

At about 2:45pm, reporter Erika Engel reported the following. Another milestone for Ashley.

This is her article, and photo credit and (c) belong to her. 

Courage flag raised in Collingwood while sentencing begins for local man who murdered wife.

Photo credit and (c) to Erika Engel of Collingwood Today

'The courage of a woman alone is not enough,' says executive director of My Friend's House during flag raising.

As a purple flag emblazoned with the word "Courage" was hoisted up a flag pole in Collingwood to mark Nov. 25 as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, friends and family members of a woman who was killed by her husband in Collingwood read out victim impact statements in a Barrie courthouse during the sentencing trial for the convicted killer. 

"The courage of a woman alone is not enough," said Alison FitzGerald, the executive director for My Friend's House, Collingwood's women and children's shelter. "It does take a community to make a difference in the lives of abused women and children." 

Members of Collingwood council helped My Friend's House staff raise the flag in front of the library this afternoon. 

FitzGerald reflected after the flag raising on the sentencing trial happening simultaneously. 

"I think it's pretty significant that James Schwalm is being sentenced today, because it's a story where, on the surface and in the community, he seemed like a good guy and nobody really knew what was happening behind the scenes," said FitzGerald in an interview with Collingwood Today. 

Schwalm has pleaded guilty to murdering his wife, Ashley Schwalm, 40, in their home while their children were asleep overnight between Jan. 25 and 26. As the case been before the courts, details have emerged about their relationship heading toward divorce. 

Schwalm strangled his wife, then dressed her body in hiking gear, drove her in her car to a mountain road and crashed it into a ditch before setting fire to it. He fabricated text messages and security footage to cover up the murder. 

The couple lived in Collingwood at the time. He was a captain on a GTA fire department when he killed his wife. 

His sentencing trial continues this afternoon in Barrie. 

"So many people were shocked to hear about the abuse in that relationship ending in murder," said FitzGerald. 

"One of the important things about women's shelters and why they were created was the fact that when women are considering leaving, they are at the greatest risk of being murdered," said FitzGerald. "I think the case of James Schwalm sort of demonstrates that, and that's why shelters exist today and why it's so important that the community supports us to keep our doors open for years to come." 

My Friend's House fields about 4,000 calls per year from women and children in crisis. The phone is answered day and night, and the shelter's 12-14 beds are always full. 

FitzGerald said she doesn't want that to deter anyone from seeking help, as the My Friend's House team will always make it work if a woman and her children need emergency shelter. 

"We want women to keep calling," she said. 

Over the last three decades, FitzGerald has seen some changes in the Collingwood community when it comes to the work of My Friend's House. 

"I'm seeing an increased understanding of violence against women and the importance of making sure that women are supported and children are supported," said FitzGerald. "People don't walk away from me anymore, they say, 'oh, what great work you are doing.'" 

She said it's always a lot of work to raise the funds needed to operate My Friend's House services each year, and noted there are many charities in Collingwood doing great work and competing for the donations that Collingwood and area residents are giving. 

And though the day's flag raising was well-supported and marked the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, FitzGerald said the work of My Friend's House goes on, and will for a long time. 

"The rates of violence against women aren't changing, and I have a sense that they're actually worsening," said FitzGerald. "We're starting to hear about youth relationships ending in murder as well. So the issue isn't going away. My Friend's House is not going to go away anytime soon." 

If you'd like to support My Friend's House with a donation this year, you can do so through their website myfriendshouse.ca.

THROW AWAY THE KEY!

Image copyright belongs to @CAN_Femicide
(Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice & Accountability)

This is the second time I have posted here about femicide hitting close personally, and for the second time, I wish I had named my electronic journal... 

"I Am NEVER Gonna Laugh About It!!"

In this second instance, I have been writing about Ashley here for the last year and a half. Readers and friends know just how much I have struggled with the shocking and brutal murder of my former coworker. 

Well, on June 21st, 2024, her accused plead guilty and will be sentenced (after victim impact statements are heard) September 24th, 2024.  

Since the moment the murderer entered a guilty plea, I have read and listened to every possible account of what unfurled in the courtroom the day he admitted to his violent crime. The article I am sharing below, is by far, what I feel provides the most detail and insight into the final day of her life. 

My biggest fear, is that by waiving his right to a pre-trail, and taking the plea bargain to a lesser charge, he will be out sooner than later. That said, that shit scumbag doesn't deserve any space in my mind that is easily devoted to her.

Because, let's face it, if there is one thing my beloved friend truly deserves, it is to rest in peace and forever sleep easy.

On a very personal note. I will always pray for her young children, as they are sadly living victims, that will never forget the very last night of their deceased mother's life.

___________________________________________________________

Firefighter admits to murdering wife in Collingwood home then staging elaborate, clumsy coverup outside one of Ontario's wealthiest private ski clubs.

Written by: Betsy Powell

Courts Reporter - Toronto Star

Betsy is a reporter with the crime, courts and justice team at the Star

 BARRIE A Brampton firefighter who masterminded his wife’s murder and attempted to conceal it by staging a fiery car crash in Ontario’s ski country left behind a trail of evidence for police to unravel.

Soon after he strangled Ashley Schwalm, 40, to death early last year in their Collingwood home — which they shared with their two young children — James Schwalm sent a series of texts to himself from her phone.

It was an attempt to convince police that she was still alive. In one, he asked her to fill up gas cans for a snowblower.

But she was already dead.

On Thursday, Schwalm, 40, pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder but guilty to second-degree murder, admitting in a Barrie courtroom that he killed his wife in their two-storey, three-bedroom home, dressed her in hiking clothes, put her lifeless body in the passenger seat of her Mitsubishi Outlander and drove to Alpine Ski Club on Arrowhead Road.

Schwalm had borrowed his mother’s car and “pre-positioned it” at the Craigleith Ski Club North Lodge parking lot to use as a getaway vehicle after staging the crash nearby.

Sometime before 6 a.m. on Jan. 26, 2023, he set the car on fire, then went home to enact his alibi.

“Ok I’m going to zip out I think the kids will be fine their sleeping,” he wrote in one text to himself from Ashley’s phone.

“Eww I left the gas cans in my car and it smells,” he wrote in another, again pretending to be her.

And later: “Oh, I have vertigo. I’m going to rush home.”

Soon, he walked their two young children to school, telling them their mother was out on a hike.

In the days leading up to her death, Schwalm Googled “alomony” — misspelling “alimony” — and the questions, “can you see iophone history after deleted,” and “does a road flare completely burn,” and “throw road flare into fire.” He also asked a doctor at a social gathering if it was possible to kill someone by snapping their neck, suggesting he was trying to settle a debate with co-workers about the reality of Steven Segal movies.

Police soon found other clues.

There was a $1 million life insurance policy naming James Schwalm as the sole beneficiary in the event of his wife’s death, along with a $250,000 policy with the couple’s children as beneficiaries. Investigators also learned the couple’s 10-year marriage was also the rocks.

On Thursday, the excruciating details of Ashley Schwalm’s murder were revealed for the first time in an agreed statement of facts.

James Schwalm poured gasoline throughout the interior and then drove the vehicle off the edge of the embankment and then, after opening the driver’s side window, lit the vehicle on fire using a lighter bearing his own initials, Crown Attorney Lynne Saunders said reading from the agreed facts in a courtroom filled with the couple’s family and friends.

Two days after the killing, Schwalm gave police a statement and handed over footage from his home’s surveillance system. That footage, he claimed, showed him leaving the home to walk his dog through the neighbourhood the morning Ashley died — he even gave police a map of the route.

When police checked his neighbours’ surveillance cameras, they found nothing to match his story; Schwalm’s footage had been “deliberately manufactured.”

Wearing a grey suit and white button-down shirt, and no tie, Schwalm appeared solemn but composed in the prisoner’s box as he answered Justice Michelle Fuerst’s questions on if he felt any coercion to plead, with his lawyer, Joelle Klein, standing nearby.

Despite pleading to a lesser charge, Schwalm still faces an automatic life sentence with Fuerst set to decide when he will first be eligible to apply for parole, from 10 to 25 years. The sentencing hearing is Sept. 26. (Schwalm will have no guarantee of parole upon his first eligibility date, nor ever.)

Schwalm was a captain with the Brampton Fire and Emergency Services until he was charged with first-degree murder.

The prosecutor gave a detailed account of the couple’s troubled marriage, which started 10 years earlier in a lavish wedding ceremony beside the ski slopes at Craigleith Ski Club, one of several private clubs in the Town of the Blue Mountains, near Collingwood on the shores of southern Georgian Bay.

In early 2022, Ashley was involved in an extra-marital affair with her then-boss. The Schwalms decided they wanted to work to repair the relationship and sought counselling. But by Christmas that year, fissures appeared, the prosecutor said. James told his mother he wasn’t sure they could make it work and Ashley informed her family she was thinking of ending the relationship, sending her sister a message quoting the lyric “all out of love,” by the band Air Supply.

James was also “nurturing” a relationship with the ex-wife of the man with whom Ashley had the affair, and days before killing her, told the woman he’d developed feelings, which she reciprocated. On Jan. 21, 2023, Schwalm told the other woman he was resolved “to do what would make him happy regardless of Ashley still wanting to make their marriage work,” the Crown attorney said.

Sometime the night of Jan. 25, their son heard his parents arguing and when he opened his bedroom door, he saw his mother and father in the upstairs hallway. Ashley asked her son to get her cellphone for her so that she could call police. He retrieved it and gave it to his mom, but then his dad told him to return to bed, Saunders said.

“Sometime later, he opened his bedroom door and saw James Schwalm crying in the area of the mudroom which connects the house to the garage,” and heard his father ask the house’s virtual assistant, “What time is it, Alexa?” to the reply, 3 a.m. Also that day, their daughter told a teacher that she had a bad night because her parents fought and she heard her mother fall down the stairs, Saunders said.

Surveillance video captured some of Schwalm’s movements that cold, dark morning, including footage showing a figure carrying a large backpack running from the area of the crash towards the Craigleith ski lodge parking lot where he had parked his mother’s car.

Just after 6 a.m. on Jan. 26, fire crews responded to a 911 call and extinguished a blaze. They found a badly burned body in the front passenger side of the vehicle.

After determining the deceased was Ashley, police interviewed Schwalm who shared bogus text messages and video clips in an attempt to deflect suspicion away from him. He said Ashley had left home early that morning to go hiking up at the ski hill — a departure from her usual hiking routine.

But it didn’t work, and Ontario Provincial Police investigators from the Collingwood detachment started digging.

On Feb. 3, 2023, they announced Schwalm had been charged with second-degree murder and indignity to a dead body. The charges were later upgraded to first-degree murder.

A post-mortem examination determined Ashley’s cause of death was neck compression not related to the crash, and that she was dead before the fire.

A IS FOR ASHLEY

May my beautiful friend and coworker forever rest in peace.
(Beautiful photo from her LinkedIn profile)

It was the last Friday afternoon of this past January. 

My boss and I had just finished our end of day call, when he empathetically said, “I have some news to share.” Then, after a long pause he said, “Ashley was killed in a car accident early yesterday morning.”

In that moment, it was like I had been punched in the throat. My mind began swirling, and I was in a complete state of disbelief. This girl had the most amazing energy and sense of kindness, I instantly fell into a general state of shock.

Fast forward from that Friday night to Sunday morning. I couldn’t find any information online, other than there had in fact been a vehicular fatality in that area the morning I was told she passed. 

So, by mid-Sunday morning I reached out to a coworker to go fishing for facts. I couldn’t stop thinking about it and I wanted to confirm that there hadn’t been some sort of bizarre misunderstanding. She quickly confirmed it was in fact her that had died.

Flash to the next Tuesday, when the rumblings shift to the chatter that her husband was being investigated for foul play in her death. In that moment, all I could do was be angry at the potential small town gossip.

Low and behold he was formally charged that Friday with second degree murder and indignity to a dead body and is being held without bail. 

His charges were then formally upgraded to first degree murder on February 17th, 2023.

Though I want to be angry at the person accused of taking her life, he doesn't deserve any space in my mind. That said, I can’t help but focus my empathy and worry to their two young children, both under the age of ten. Still processing all of this, it is so sad that they lost both of their parents that day. 

Not that I am anyone special in the big scheme of all of this, I am just one of many that is extremely grateful to have been able to call Ashley Schwalm my friend. I will always miss my former coworker dearly.

Rest in peace my beloved Schwalmster. 

Because if there is one thing you deserve, it's to forever sleep easy. 

G IS FOR GENEROSITY

My 2019 April A-Z Blogging Challenge posts will primarily consist of words and corresponding quotes.
(...With the odd opinionated electronic journal entry inserted to keep you on your toes.) 

MY UNEXPECTED VISIT

I came home from work last night & climbed straight into bed. So weak with fever that I never bothered getting out of my dress clothes.

I just plopped my snotty self under the covers in an effort to achieve a level of complete relaxation that would ultimately lead to the comatose state I’d been craving all day. Those two hours of deep sleep were heavenly.

When I finally woke up, I managed to haul my ass out of bed long enough to get my jammies on, yet by 8pm I had called it a night. When my alarm went off at 5am, I text my boss and went back to sleep for another four hours. It was in those four hours that something extraordinary happened: I dreamt of my Dad.

Words can't accurately describe how glowing & vivid my dream was. I could actually hear his voice. I recognized the clothing he was wearing and navigated his surroundings like I was actually there. The scenario was as if he'd never spent is last months in hospice with me, rather been placed in a home for palliative care.

Though it was a sunny spring day outside, I was anxious when I was dreaming because his level of care was not what I thought he was entitled to. When I awoke (after what felt like spending the day with him) I was in the midst of dreaming that I was trying to locate my cellphone in his room; which was actually my cellphone signalling me notifications that my boss needed my assistance with something at the office. Just like that, our visit was over.

As I greeted my day still groggy, I realized it was just my fever breaking. Yet, because we had such a vivid visit today, as I sat at the computer sneezing like a poltergeist throughout the day, it felt like he was there with me. 

You see, once I'd get my snot & sneezing outbreaks under control, I'd sit quietly and listen for my Dad to acknowledge me with a kleenex box and his standard… ‘Gesundheit!

Fever breaking or just a silly dream, I love that my mind had us enjoy today together. 

As always, I'm forever grateful for him stopping by.

There is NEVER a bad time to get a visit from my Best Friend...
TAKEN: MAY 1985