© Karl Kopan / The Canadian PressKim Walker is lead from court by RCMP officers in Yorkton, Sask. on Jan. 19, 2007.
"You will never fully understand what you have done and I will never forgive you for it," James Hayward's brother Dan said in a victim impact statement released outside court.
Portions of the statement were read at Walker's sentencing hearing. Court of Queen's Bench Justice Ellen Gunn said she would decide his fate July 13.
Dan Hayward said his brother wasn't a monster or a saint.
"He was a 24-year-old man with problems, someone that made mistakes, just as many other people do in life," he said. "He never got the chance to straighten his life out because Kim Walker stole that chance from him."
Walker was convicted of manslaughter Thursday after being tried for a second time in Hayward's death. The 24-year-old was shot several times in his home in Yorkton, Sask., in March 2003.
A new trial was ordered by the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal because the judge and lawyers at Walker's first trial had discussions without him. An accused person must be present for all of his trial.
The Crown wants Walker to be sentenced to 11 years, but the defence suggests the 3 1/2 years he served after being convicted of second-degree murder at his first trial is enough.
Walker's daughter Jadah, who was 16 at the time, was living with Hayward.
Her father testified that he worried the young man was shooting her up with morphine - he said she had lost at least 40 pounds - and that he feared for her life. He said he had tried to get police and school counsellors to help the family, but no one did.
When the family finally managed to get Jadah into treatment, she went right back to Hayward when she got out.
Walker took a loaded handgun to Hayward's house. There was a confrontation and Walker fired every bullet in his clip.
"He wants us to think James was someone he was afraid of," Dan Hayward wrote in the statement. "He wants us to believe that's why he went to James's house with gun for protection while 'saving' his daughter from my brother.
"What do you think the odds are that 16-year-old Jadah told her family the truth about her choices to use drugs?"
He said he was shocked when he learned his brother had been killed by someone who, as a responsible parent, should have tried to help both his daughter and her boyfriend.
"I guess it was easier to shoot my brother than help him.
"(Walker) crippled my life by taking away my best friend, the one person on this earth that knew me better than I know myself."
The victim's mother said she can't forget that her son wasn't with his family for the last holiday he would ever spend.
"James spent his last Christmas with the Walker family, with the man who murdered him. This will always haunt me," said Lorrie Getty.
"The boy I raised will never get the chance to be the man I always knew he could be, because that chance was taken away from James forever."
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