MAYOR SPEAKS OUT
Sentencing for Ganatchio killer
One of Sara Anne Widholm's greatest regrets with her last breath would not have been about dying, her son said Tuesday, but knowing she couldn't tell her husband one last time how much she loved him.
Several of Widholm's friends and family — along with Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens, in a rare foray into criminal court proceedings — filed victim-impact statements for a sentencing hearing that began Tuesday for Widholm's killer.
As a faithful Christian, Widholm's son wrote, “she would not have minded the death so much, the fact of it.”
What would have bothered her, said Kristofer Widholm, was losing the ability to continue spreading God's joy, and being cheated out of the privilege of holding her husband Alfred's hand during his last moments on this earth.
“She was caused to miss the horror and honour of witnessing her husband die, as he did just a month after she was beaten,” Kristofer wrote. “She would have loved to have been able to tell him her gratitude and her love.
“Instead, he died without her there to help him and honour him. He died without hearing her love and feeling her hand of support. She was his life more than 50 years and she would have wanted to steady him home. This was stolen from her.”
Habibullah (Danny) Ahmadi was found guilty of second-degree murder in November. High on marijuana and magic mushrooms, he randomly attacked Widholm on Oct. 8, 2017, as she walked alone on the Ganatchio Trail picking up trash. Ahmadi was 21. Widholm was 75.
Second-degree murder carries an automatic life sentence, so Tuesday's hearing was focused on when Ahmadi should become eligible for parole. The range is 10 to 25 years.
Defence lawyer Patricia Brown will make arguments for parole eligibility later this month. Assistant Crown attorney Renee Puskas argued Tuesday that Ahmadi should not become eligible for parole for 14 to 17 years.
“This was a very brutal, vicious, unprovoked attack against a defenceless 75-year old woman on a public trail,” she said.
Suffering from injuries including skull fractures, fractured vertebrae, multiple brain hemorrhages and a blood clot in her brain, Widholm fell into a coma and died 14 months later at age 76.
“The worst part of all was that this was mom's worst nightmare, being closed into a body that didn't work,” daughter Lisa Elvborn wrote in her statement.
“She talked to us about it so many times and it's just so weird that of all things that could have happened to her, the thing she feared the most happened. It just hurts so much.”
She said her mother was also robbed of watching her grandchildren blossom into adulthood.
“I can't share with her my daughter's love of animals or her accomplishments, riding or in school,” said Elvborn, who lives in Sweden. “She won't be there when she graduates.
“My daughter misses her grandmother a lot, and also does my husband, Mathias. They had a very strong connection even through the distance.”
At 75, despite love and devotion from children, grandchildren and a husband of 54 years, Widholm was just becoming comfortable in her own skin, her son said.
“For most of her life she had struggled with self-acceptance and often crippling depression,” said Kristofer. “She was finally coming into her own and beginning to experience joy in life. Real joy in serving others, and in a quiet way, a relaxed acceptance of herself. She believed this was God's lifelong work in her that was finally blossoming.”
The solitary morning walks were her way to meditate on her devotion to God and her new-found inner peace, he wrote.
“This was her time to be quiet with herself and to be, as best as she knew how, with God,” he said. “But on this morning she crossed paths with a person who made a choice to destroy her despite her fear and her protest, and despite her inability to inflict any kind of pain on the attacker.
“She was terrified and no one helped her. She asked for it to stop and was met with no regard.”
In what was called a community impact statement on behalf of the city, Dilkens wrote that citizens have been left looking for answers and understanding to explain how such a “heinous crime” could occur. But, “there was ultimately no reason at all,” he said.
“It is the senseless and selfish nature of this crime that so offends my community,” Dilkens wrote.
He said Widholm was “a lady that most of us had never met, but for all of us, we considered part of our Windsor family.”
“I strive to find good in everyone,” said Dilkens. “I'm told that Sara Anne Widholm did this, too. I'm sure, given the opportunity, I could find good in the defendant.
“But today, on behalf of the residents of the City of Windsor, he needs to know that his actions have deeply impacted our community in a way that will take decades for most to reconcile.”
The worst part of all was that this was mom's worst nightmare, being closed into a body that didn't work.