Warning: Readers may find some details in this story disturbing
A Calgary woman who tearfully pleaded for help in catching her mother's killer last year admitted Monday that she was the one who murdered her mother in a squabble over money.
Irene Carter was found dead in her Lethbridge, Alta., home in January, 2016. The 78-year-old had been stabbed 13 times in the chest and thrown down a set of stairs.
For months, police were unable to make an arrest. Then on April 7, 2017, her daughter Lisa Freihaut tearfully addressed the media to ask for the public’s help in finding her mother’s killer, calling her death “senseless” and saying that “no family deserves to go through this.”
Less than two weeks later, police charged Freihaut with second-degree murder in her mother’s death.
On Monday, Freihaut, now 53, pleaded guilty to that charge.
According to the agreed statement of facts read out in the Lethbridge courthouse Monday, Freihaut had developed a gambling addiction and had taken over responsibility for her mother's finances.
When Carter discovered that Freihaut had taken out a mortgage on her home without her knowledge, she confronted her daughter and a fight broke out.
Freihaut said she stabbed her mother with a knife multiple times in the chest. When she noticed that Carter was still moving, she grabbed her head and repeatedly banged it on the floor until her mother stopped breathing. Freihaut then threw things around the room to make the murder look like a robbery.
“The level of violence was remarkable,” Crown prosecutor Brad Stephenson said Monday.
Friehaut’s defence team noted that she and her mother had a passive-aggressive relationship, and that Freihaut had been subjected to a lifetime of neglect at the hands of her mother.
“(Carter’s death) was extremely, extremely violent, and in my mind, demonstrates the triggers that had been going on for years,” defence lawyer Andre Ouelette said.
The court agreed to hear seven victim impact statements, including one from Carter’s sister who told the court that she lost her only sibling when Carter died in “a wicked, wicked manner.”
Freihaut addressed the court and said there was nothing that she could say or do that would change what she had done. She said she knew forgiveness was not an option and that she would regret her actions for the rest of her life.
"I am so sorry for what I have done,” she said.
A second-degree murder conviction carries an automatic life sentence. Justice Dallas Miller accepted the joint submission of the Crown and defence and ruled Freihaut would be ineligible for parole for 11 years.
