'Infirm and elderly' B.C. man, 86, gets life sentence for killing couple next door over noise dispute

An 86-year-old B.C. man who shot and killed his long-time neighbour over a petty noise issue before turning the gun on the man’s wife will likely spend the rest of his days in prison after being sentenced to life in prison last week.

In deciding on 86-year-old Robert Amede Freeman’s parole eligibility, the judge considered his “infirm and elderly” state and sided with the defence and set it at the minimum of 10 years.

“He is not well now, and he was not well at the time he committed the offences,” B.C. Supreme Court Justice Andrea Ormiston wrote, noting diabetes, heart disease, a brain injury, chronic abdominal pain and severe IBS among his current conditions.

“There is, in short, a practical reality to Mr. Freeman’s circumstances when it comes to parole ineligibility that cannot be ignored.”

Freeman pleaded guilty last month to the second-degree murder of John Kavaloff, 58, and the manslaughter of Valerie Smith, 67, on Sept. 13, 2023, in the Chilliwack trailer park where the three had been next-door neighbours for over a decade. The mandatory sentence for the first charge is life imprisonment, and Ormiston added a concurrent eight-year sentence for manslaughter.

Freeman’s admission of guilt, however, came on the day his trial was set to begin, “after nearly 1,000 days, more than 40 court appearances, endless adjournments, delays, excuses, and years of being retraumatized over and over again,” according to the victim’s daughter-in-law and family spokesperson Joy Watson-Finnigan .

“It is very difficult for our family to understand how someone who is truly remorseful continues to prolong the process while victims’ families are left drowning in grief and trauma,” she wrote on Facebook after Freeman was sentenced on May 15.



In the decision published last week, Ormiston said Freeman’s actions “stand in stark contrast to a life of honest living and contributions to society.”

“The offences are not only unjustifiable, but also inexplicable, given the neighbourly relationship that had existed,” she wrote.

In her victim impact statement read at court, Watson-Finnigan said Freeman’s wife once painted the likeness of the dead couple’s beloved Yorkie on a rock and that after her passing, members of the family would routinely bring food to Freeman, according to The Chilliwack Progress.

The court heard during sentencing that Freeman, who was 83 at the time, had just purchased a new bed and put it in a different room in his home where the window faces Kavaloff’s workshop on the day of the killings.

Around 8 p.m. that night, Freeman left his home with a “seething frustration about his ability to sleep” and armed with his loaded .22 calibre rifled, denoting “a kind of vigilantism to his approach,” the judge wrote.

According to the Progress, the noise was from a motorcycle belonging to a visiting friend.

After what is described only as a brief verbal confrontation in the couple’s driveway, Freeman aimed and fired a single shot at Kavaloff, hitting him in the chest, the decision explains. He fired another at Smith as she emerged from inside the home. Both “innocent and defenceless” victims died from their single gunshot wound.

“They were real people who mattered deeply and should still be here today,” Watson-Finnigan wrote. “We deserved more time with them.”

Ormiston said Freeman’s response to the noise issue was “exceptionally disproportionate” and even he admitted shooting Smith was “entirely senseless.”

Without checking on either’s condition, Freeman then returned home, laid his rifle on his bed and waited for police to arrive and arrest him. During interviews in custody, he admitted to shooting them, “expressed remorse and disbelief” about his actions and “described feeling desperate and upset about being disturbed by noise.”

Ormiston accepted Freeman’s remorse as sincere and his understanding of the injustice he created.

“As is often the case with revenge, when emotions overtake process, there can be no justice,” she wrote.

She also reminded Freeman of the long-term devastation his actions will have on the lives of Kavaloff and Smith’s family.

“These offences not only took two lives but also took away the peace and comfort of many more who loved and depended on them, including young children,” she wrote.

“You caused enormous harm to their loved ones that cannot be undone, and in resorting to such brazen acts of violence you have caused harm to our community. These offences undermine our collective sense of safety. They undermine the freedom to live our lives without fear.”

The bereaved family feel there there should “no early parole despite age, health or any other excuse” and argued that Canadians would see it as unacceptable if the killer were a young offender.

“Yet this continues happening across Canada over and over again, where violent offenders serve shockingly short periods of time for taking human lives,” she wrote.

“At some point, Canadians need to start standing together and demanding change for victims and families impacted by violent crime. The system cannot continue failing grieving families like this over and over again.”

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