HE JUST WANTED HER AT HOME

He didn't know whether he would ever see his daughter again and
doesn't remember the steps he took before he shot her abuser.

That was the testimony of the 50-year-old Yorkton man accused of
unlawfully causing the death of 24- year-old James William Hayward on
March 17, 2003.

The testimony came on Monday as Saskatoon defence lawyer Morris
Bodnar began questioning his client.

The father described how he and his wife Elizabeth started getting
concerned about their daughter in the fall of 2002. Her schoolwork
started to slide and she began staying out late at night, sometimes
not returning home at all.

"It was her attitude with school and with us, her parents," he
stated, adding Jadah would argue with his wife about not coming home at night.

One of the arguments got so serious the father dialed what he thought
was the Mental Health number.

Only, instead of getting a counsellor he got an RCMP officer who
heard an argument going on in the background and sent a police car to
the home. The intended number was just one away from that of the RCMP.

The father says once the officers arrived they suggested "tough love"
and to kick her out of their home.

"Jadah said she had a place to go. I don't know if the police took
her there or if she went on her own," he testified.

Bodnar asked the father about his visits with Jadah after she moved
to 64 Agricultural Ave.

He said he would visit at least once a week but sometimes took her
out for lunch up to three times a week. Each time he tried to get her
to come home. "We knew this lifestyle wasn't good for her," said the father.

Bodnar asked if they as parents knew of their daughter's involvement
with drugs. They both perceived it was marijuana or possibly alcohol.

It was the week before the murder the parents received an anonymous
letter that caused them great concern.

It stated Jadah was "mainlining morphine" and caused the two parents
to "spring into action," Bodnar alluded to in his question.

The parents confronted their daughter about the letter, "she denied
anything like that had been going on."

Bodnar asked if the parents had suspicions it was Jessica Winotowy
who wrote the letter. Initially she didn't admit to it but later did
and agreed to go to the police station to make a statement.

Subsequently, the parents were able to attain a Mental Health Act
arrest warrant to remove their daughter from the home.

Jadah was arrested by RCMP and taken to the Pine Unit on the Friday
before the shooting.

It was the same day the father received a phone call at work. It was
James Hayward who among other things told the father he would never
see his daughter again.

It was the following Monday Jadah was released from the Pine Unit. A
phone call came to the home. Jadah picked up the phone in the bedroom
where she was lying down to rest.

The father testified he told Jadah to hang up and went to the kitchen
to pick up another line. When he did, he thought he heard Hayward say
"you would never see her again" and then there seemed to be nobody on the line.

This time the meaning seemed different. "I believed he was going to
kill her," he testified.

However, the father had to be at work that afternoon so he went
downstairs to get dressed.

"My wife came down and informed me Jadah had been taken," he said. "I
don't remember much after that."

Testimony of witnesses in the trial said shortly after the father
arrived at the James Hayward home.

Bodnar went on to say the father then went to a neighbor's house to
call police, before returning to the scene of the shooting where he
waited for police to arrive.

He also drew attention to testimony of several witnesses that say
they heard a knock before the father entered the home. You don't
knock if you are going to push your way in," he reasoned, drawing to
question the validity of the information.

Bodnar suggested, while there are many parents who don't care about
their children, they are parents who are concerned about the welfare
of their children.

It was such a concerned father who went to what Bodnar referred to as
a drug den" up to three times a week, to take his daughter for lunch
in an attempt to convince her to come home. Then one day, "low and
behold this letter arrives."

Referring to a letter written by Jessica Wonitowy, a friend of Jadah
who also frequented Hayward's home, he said the stark words of their
daughter's declining health and weight loss was due to her mainlining
morphine" was alarming for the parents.

He then reminded the jury the parents tried to access all methods
possible for help after that. They took the letter to police, a
Mental Health Act Warrant was obtained from a judge and they even
convinced Wonitowy to give a statement to police all within days of
receiving the letter.

After all that effort, including admitting her to the Pine Unit,
Jadah was back in Hayward's house again the day she was released. It
was the point the situation became too much for the father.

There's no doubt he took a gun and went to the house... He did not
have the intention to kill, but to rescue her," and was going to a
place he could "get hurt and hurt bad."

Bodnar asked the jury members if they wanted to send a message to
drug dealers they can "slowly kill your children with drugs like some
kind of cancer."

Referring to dialogue in a movie he once saw about a similar
situation, Bodnar closed, "Maybe it's time we were mad as hell about
drug dealers sticking needles into the arms of our kids."