How far would you go to save the life of your child?
This is the question that haunts the Kim Walker story as we follow the twists and turns of a gripping real life drama on W5.
From the time the middle-aged welder first learned his daughter, Jadah, was involved with the most prominent drug dealer in Yorkton, Saskatchewan, he was a worried man.
Jadah was the apple of his eye. He and his wife Liz treasured those times when she told them how much she loved them and how important they were in her life. No daughter could have been more perfect in their eyes. What a shock then when everything suddenly changed.
Jadah became a mocking, ill-tempered, foul-mouthed teenage nightmare. They hoped she was just going through "a stage" and would get past it, but their solid small town prairie values could not have prepared them for how bad it would get.
The beautiful girl, whose charm and personality had captivated all who met her, was transformed into a wild party girl, always looking for a good time with boys and drugs as part of the scene. When she met James Hayward, the magnetic attraction was immediate. Hayward couldn't resist the appeal of this seductive and freewheeling young woman and, to Jadah, he was a big man about town.
Hayward's house was a popular hangout for local teens, he knew how to make everybody feel welcome and his never-ending drug supply was the news on the street for miles around. Hayward fell hard for Jadah and, to the wrenching dismay of her mother and father, she moved in with him just after her 16th birthday.
The desperate parents pleaded with the local RCMP detachment in Yorkton to rescue their daughter, who by then was stoned on morphine most of the time and wasting away. They worried she was dying and felt swift action was required. The police later claim they did all they could within the law. But did they?
The Walkers finally got Jadah admitted to a mental health facility for 72 hours, but she refused to stay longer and authorities could not hold her. An hour after her release she was back with James Hayward.
At this stage, her father took the law into his own hands. He drove to Hayward's house and on St. Patrick's Day in 2003, Yorkton was stunned as shots pierced the calm of a March afternoon and tragedy struck two families. Hayward was dead, Kim Walker's wife and family were in shock and the lines were drawn between the many who felt Walker had no choice given the circumstances and those who regarded him as a cold blooded killer.
We follow the many threads of this story: Walker's trials that end, in the first case with a murder conviction and on appeal reduced to manslaughter; the actions of the police and why they didn't move on Hayward when they had knowledge he was dealing drugs; and we hear from the victim James Hayward's brother, Dan, who tells us about his relationship with his older brother and the deep sense of loss felt by his own family as he chillingly reveals his feeling that "Kim Walker got away with murder."
We also speak with Kim Walker inside the Regina Correctional Facility; we hear from Jadah's former best friend, Jessica, who became so entangled in the drama between Jadah and her boyfriend, James, she chose to flee Yorkton after the horror; and we meet Jadah's long-suffering mother, Liz, as she explains the turmoil she has had to endure.
As for the young woman at the centre of it all: Jadah Walker now has a family of her own. How far would she go to protect her precious and precocious three-year-old boy? She'll tell us. It is sure to leave us contemplating the key question on which this tragic tale turns.
