Son gets life for beating mom to death
Warning: Graphic content
A man who repeatedly punched and stomped his 63-year-old mother says she was hiding something from him during an argument, and he “snapped.”
But Kyle James Zerr, 30, said he didn’t intend to hurt his mother when he went to her College Park home the evening of March 22, 2016.
“All I remember is losing my head. It should have never happened,” he told Saskatoon Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Mona Dovell.
Last month, Zerr pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in connection with Sandra Zerr’s death. He told court he wanted to plead guilty upon his arrest, but wasn’t given the chance.
Defence lawyer Shane Kozakavich confirmed Zerr had been following his instructions and entered the guilty plea against his advice.
During a police interview, Zerr admitted punching his mother seven to 10 times in the face before throwing her on the floor, where he proceeded to punch her three more times.
He said he then stomped Sandra in the head between 12 and 15 times. The last three stomps involved Zerr jumping on her head using both his feet, Crown prosecutor Darren Howarth told court, reading from an agreed statement of facts.
Zerr called 911 and told the operator to send an ambulance and police. Howarth said when police arrived, Zerr told them to “lock him up for life” because he knew his mother wasn’t going to survive.
Sandra died in hospital later that day.
“She was essentially almost unrecognizable,” Howarth said, describing the victim as a “diminutive woman” who couldn’t do anything but scream for help.
Sandra — a mother of four, grandmother and a retired nurse — lived alone in her Balfour Street home. Zerr, her youngest son, lived in a nearby apartment. Court heard she helped pay his rent, as he was not working at the time.
The night of the fatal beating, Zerr walked over to Sandra’s home to discuss an issue he had with his landlord. The mother and son argued for about five minutes about what should be done, Howarth said.
Zerr told police there was a moment of silence before his anger got the better of him.
“He felt there was a great deal of mistrust there,” Howarth said about Zerr’s explanation for his violence. “He said he didn’t want to go through the rest of his life with that level of mistrust between him and his mother.”
Zerr said he has bipolar disorder but hasn’t taken medication for a long time. That had nothing to do with his decision to beat his mother, Zerr told Justice Dovell. He also said he was sober at the time.
The mandatory sentence for second-degree murder is life imprisonment. The Crown asked for the minimum parole eligibility of 10 years based on a number of mitigating factors, including Zerr’s desire to plead guilty and lack of a prior criminal record.
When Dovell asked Zerr if he had anything to say, he replied “There’s nothing I could say.”
Through a victim-impact statement, Sandra’s friends described her as a generous person who often took care of others before herself.
“You allowed your jealousy, your insecurity, your bitterness and your selfishness to take hold of you & control you. Everything she taught us to rail against,” Sandra’s son wrote to Zerr.
“As such she was our biggest champion. Kyle — she was your biggest champion. And you took her from all of us.”