No one knows why Freda Goodrunning was killed.
Not even the man who beat her to death.
The mother of six was battered with a golf club. When the head of the club snapped off, she was stabbed repeatedly with the shaft, then her body was covered up and left in an abandoned shack in Edmonton’s west end.
A man who walked by hours later spotted a bloody hand sticking out from under a purple sleeping bag.
This week in Edmonton Court of Queen’s Bench, the man who killed Goodrunning in June 2014 was sentenced to eight years in prison.
Jesse Martin pleaded guilty to manslaughter. He said is haunted by Goodrunning’s death, but can’t remember much from that night, other than hitting her on the knee “a couple of times” with the golf club.
“I was drinking and was drunk at the time of the offence, and I was kind of blacked out,” Martin told the author of a Gladue report.
But he did recall how scared and hurt Goodrunning was.
“She was crying and she was talking to us, and then she passed out. [We] brought her to the front of the shack and put a blanket over her. I did not think she was dead. I thought she had passed out.”
The shack in west Edmonton where Freda Goodrunning was beaten and left to die. (CBC )
It took two and a half years to charge Martin. As a result, Goodrunning was profiled on the CBC series Missing & Murdered: The Unsolved Cases of Indigenous Women and Girls.
Goodrunning grew up on Sunchild First Nation in central Alberta. She eventually married and had six children. But when she moved to Edmonton, she suffered domestic violence, got lost in alcoholism and ended up on the street.
‘She showed me unconditional love’
Goodrunning’s daughter said she had no idea her mother was homeless until after she died.
“She showed me unconditional love,” Deena Goodrunning said in a victim impact statement she read aloud in court. “She was suffering so much. She always showed up for visits with a smile on her face.”
Freda Goodrunning was the mother of six children.
The 18-year old told Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Paul Belzil about her mother.
“She liked to take me on picnics,” she said. “She always hugged me when I cried. I’ve cried so much I’ve run out of tears. Now I’m just empty.”
The teen tried to remember the way her mother lived, rather than how she died, acknowledging her mom faced challenges.
“She was an alcoholic, and even when she was at her drunkest, she would tell me I was a sweet girl and smile before she passed out,” Goodrunning said as she fought back tears.
The teen’s words appeared to have had an impact on the judge.
“It is clear she was a very vulnerable person,” Belzil said. “She was a beloved person by many, including her daughter. The fact that she had difficulties in life in no way justified the attack on her.”
Goodrunning and her killer were both homeless. She and Martin had been involved in a relationship for about a year, and often used an abandoned shack for shelter.
Throughout the day on June 3, 2014, the couple spent hours drinking alcohol and Listerine with two men behind a grocery store. Soon after midnight, the group went to the shack to keep drinking.
According to an agreed statement of facts, Martin punched one man during an argument. The two other men then left Martin and Goodrunning alone in the shed.
When one of them returned, he saw Martin hitting Goodrunning with a golf club.
She had no reason to believe he would attack her– Justice Paul Belzil
“She trusted him and was entitled to believe that he would never hurt her,” Belzil said. “She had no reason to believe he would attack her. All of a sudden, she must have realized to her horror that he was attacking her with a golf club and hurting her very, very seriously. This was prolonged, gratuitous violence.
“I find it particularly aggravating that she was left to die … which was truly an outrageous thing to do to anyone. It is clear she was a very vulnerable person.”
An autopsy showed Goodrunning suffered bruises, abrasions and lacerations to her head, neck, torso, arms, legs, hands and feet. She was stabbed 11 times and had broken bones in her thigh and right hand.
Days after the attack, Edmonton police said the autopsy results were inconclusive, pending toxicology tests.
‘The circumstances haunt him daily’
Martin was diagnosed at age 12 with pervasive developmental delay with psychotic tendencies. He has a long criminal history and has admitted that most of his crimes were committed when he was under the influence of alcohol.
Born in Iqualit, Nunavut, he never met his parents. He was adopted at birth by non-Aboriginal parents and removed from the community, so was disconnected from his Indigenous heritage.
Belzil said in passing sentence he considered the Gladue report, along with Martin’s cognitive deficits and his guilty plea.
The Crown had requested 10 years, while the defence suggested a sentence of six to eight years.
Through his lawyer, Martin, 35, apologized to his victim’s family.
“The circumstances haunt him daily,” Steve Fix said. “He does not think he will ever be free of that.”