‘I MISS MY DAUGHTER’
Dad’s moving statement
Heartbreaking victim impact statements, including one from the father of a slain Alberta girl, were heard Friday in the case of a woman who drugged her daughter and set ablaze the SUV she was in.
Duane Lucius spoke of the tragic loss of his only daughter, Amber, at the hands of his ex-wife, Laura Coward. “The most I miss is her warm hugs as we laugh and smile,” Lucius said, as he held on to a photograph of himself and Amber.
“I miss all the fun we had together,” said the grieving father, who only learned the gruesome details of his daughter’s death when Coward pleaded guilty last month to second-degree murder in Amber’s August 2014 slaying.
Coward, 50, admitted causing her daughter’s fiery death either late on Aug. 30, or in the early morning hours of Aug. 31, after she drugged her with sleeping pills and mistakenly believed the girl was dead. According to medical reports, nine-year-old Amber died of a combination of hyperthermia (elevated body temperature), smoke inhalation and carbon monoxide toxicity, after Coward drugged the girl and set her SUV on fire.
Lucius, reading from his victim impact statement, said his daughter’s death was incomprehensible.
“I feel upset … how someone could do something like this to a little innocent girl with a whole life ahead of her,” he said, as Coward sat dispassionately in the prison- er’s box. “I miss my daughter with my whole heart,” he said.
“I think about her every day, I miss the time I spent with her.”
The dad spoke of his fights to have access to his daughter after Coward took her away in 2007, eventually gaining full custody of the girl. And he said he was heartbroken to learn his daughter was dead after Coward failed to return her following an access ahead of the start of the school year.
“The saddest day in my life was in September 2014, when I was told Amber was found dead in an SUV.
“I did not know how she died or what really happened until this February,” he said. “It was a hard time the last two years of not knowing what happened.
“I would like to know how a person could do such a thing.”
Court also heard victim impact statements from other family members, such as the girl’s stepmother, Michelle Kuzma, and step-aunt, Corinne Ward.
Coward offered a teary apology before Justice Scott Brooker adjourned the case to next Friday, when he will hand her an automatic life sentence and determine how long she must serve before she can apply for full parole.
“I want to say to the father, my family, friends that I’m responsible for my choices and that I beg for their forgiveness and I plead for your mercy,” she said through sobs.
Crown prosecutor Jillian Pawlow argued Brooker should set parole ineligibility at 20 years, suggesting the killing of the girl was motivated by revenge.
“The accused’s primary motivation was revenge … was to inflict the most serious pain on Duane Lucius by depriving him of his only daughter,” Pawlow told Brooker.
But defence lawyer Jim Lutz, who suggested parole ineligibility should be between 10 and 12 years, said the admitted facts didn’t lead to the conclusion his client, who didn’t say why she killed the girl, was motivated by vengeance.