11 years forFreihaut

CALGARY WOMAN SENTENCED FOR MURDER OF LETHBRIDGE MOTHER

A53-year-old Calgary woman who viciously stabbed and repeatedly slammed her elderly mother’s head into the ground has been sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 11 years. Lisa Freihaut showed little emotion Monday in Lethbridge Court of Queen’s Bench after Justice Dallas Miller gave his decision, and she only glanced briefly at family members as she was led out of the courtroom to begin her penitentiary sentence.

Although Miller acknowledged suggestions by defence that Freihaut’s mother, Irene Carter, was abusive toward her adopted daughter, that’s no excuse for her “mindless and evil behaviour.”

Court was told Freihaut — who pleaded guilty Monday to second-degree murder — and her mother argued on the phone Jan. 13, 2016 over things Freihaut had done as power of attorney for her parents. That same day Freihaut drove from Calgary to her mother’s home in Lethbridge, where the two continued to argue.

“Irene told Lisa she was a horrible daughter and that she wished she’d never adopted Lisa,” Crown prosecutor Brad Stephenson told court as he read from an agreed statement of facts during the sentencing hearing.

Carter also also told Lisa, “I wish you were dead and I could just kill you right now.”

Stephenson said Freihaut approached her mother and the 78-year-old woman grabbed a knife and told her daughter to leave. Instead, “Lisa grabbed the knife and stabbed Irene multiple times,” Stephenson said.

Carter walked out of the kitchen and as she approached the stairs Freihaut pushed her down the steps, where the injured woman lay on the floor by the front door. Freihaut then banged her mother’s head on the floor until she stopped breathing.

“Lisa then started throwing things all over the floor to make it look like there had been a robbery. Lisa tried to cover her tracks rather than call police, she even took the cord out of the phone so that Irene couldn’t use the phone if she was not dead.”

Stephenson told court that the relationship between Freihaut and her mother was generally strained, but grew worse in the months before the murder.

Freihaut, who has a gambling addiction, had applied for a mortgage on her mother’s home for $101,340, and was advanced $89,716 on Dec. 11, 2015. Freihaut had also called an insurance company to find out if her mother had a life insurance policy, and she had attempted to take money from her parent’s investments. It was the mortgage over which the two argued when Freihaut drove to Lethbridge and killed her mother.

The autopsy shows Carter was stabbed 12 times and had multiple blunt force injuries, the combination of which led to her death.

Several of Carter’s family members and friends cried softly as they heard the Crown describe the horrific attack and resulting injuries, and niece Renee Barton told court she has felt numerous emotions ranging from sadness, fear and contempt, to rage, disgust and betrayal.

“I believe, deep down, I knew she was guilty,” Barton said as she read from her victim impact statement.

But she supported Freihaut through her struggles, including her “Academy winning, deceitful performance” at Carter’s funeral and when Freihaut petitioned the public to help find her mother’s killer.

Tammy Winder, an Alberta Health Services employee who helped care for Carter after she was diagnosed with onset schizophrenia at the age of 71, told court Carter’s murder has shaken her confidence in her ability to to her job, and she feels guilty that she couldn’t protect her elderly client and friend.

“You showed me all that is evil in this world,” Winder said to Freihaut, who sat in the prisoners’ dock only a few metres away. “I have no forgiveness in my heart for you.”

Freihaut didn’t ask for forgiveness, but tearfully apologized to family for destroying so many lives.

“I know forgiveness is no option,” she said. “For the rest of my life I will regret this.”

Defence lawyer Andre Ouellette, who agreed with the recommended parole eligibility after 11 years, admitted outside court afterward that his client’s actions were “extremely, extremely violent,” but suggested she may have been pushed over the edge by her mother.

In the courtroom Ouellette described Carter as an abuser who called her daughter a “whore” and other names, and had treated her cruelly ever since she was a child and all through their “passive, aggressive” relationship.

To Carter’s Lethbridge friends, she was respected and loved, Ouellette said, but to her daughter and grandchildren, “she was something else.”

Co-prosecutor Darwyn Ross said afterward, however, that family members, as well as healthcare workers who assisted Carter for months and knew her well, have a different perspective, which is different from defence’s portrayal.