WARNING: This story contains descriptions of violence.
Rows of Lauren Jarvis’s friends and family members sat in an Edmonton courtroom this week and watched images of her appear on a screen.
In a procession of photos and videos, the 27-year-old makes faces next to her friends, and sings in the car with the windows down, laughing.
Ryan Farrell, the man who admitted to killing her, kept his eyes down as he sat in the prisoner’s box.
Farrell, 34, was briefly Jarvis’s neighbour. He came to Edmonton from Halifax in early 2023 to look for work, moving in with his father, who lived upstairs from Jarvis in a separate suite in the same Westmount fourplex.
Farrell pleaded guilty to manslaughter this week, admitting that on April 2, 2023, he attacked Jarvis, beating her with a walking cane and then strangling her with a rope. Her body was discovered in her bedroom later that day, wrapped in a carpet that was taped shut, her hands and feet bound and a bag over her head.
Court heard that besides living nearby, with suites that shared a common entrance area, the two didn’t know each other.
Farrell said he has little to no memory of what he did or why.
Defence lawyer Danielle Boisvert said at the time, Farrell was in a period of stress and isolation that fuelled a “week-long bender” where he was drinking heavily, abusing his prescription Adderall and taking steroids he’d been using to get into bodybuilding.
Farrell was initially charged with second-degree murder, but pleaded guilty to the lesser offence. On Thursday, Court of King’s Bench Justice George Fraser accepted a joint submission from the Crown and defence for a 10 ½-year prison sentence.
Boisvert said her client is truly remorseful for his actions, and his guilty plea is part of expressing that.
Crown prosecutor Sandra Christenson-Moore said the plea negotiation came after a preliminary hearing last year revealed potential Charter issues and a “strong basis to challenge some of the evidence that was collected.”
Jarvis’s brother, Spencer Jarvis, said it’s not the conclusion the family wanted.
“It’s clear that somewhere along the way there were enough mistakes to lead to a manslaughter charge. We are not happy with this outcome, although we are thankful that Ryan Farrell is at least serving time,” he said.
“This was a disgusting and random act of violence from a complete stranger to Lauren.”
Court hears victim impact statements
In more than a dozen victim impact statements this week, people who were close to Jarvis described the struggle to make sense of what happened to her.
Her mother Diana Medve spoke about her “spirited middle child” who loved children and animals, and had dreams of becoming an interior designer.
“There’s no answer, no reason, that could justify what you’ve done,” she told Farrell.
The day Jarvis was killed, she and one of her best friends, Casandra Wildermuth, were planning to take a walk in the river valley and eat at Denny’s.
They texted back and forth throughout the morning, and over a 30-minute video call, kept chatting while Jarvis did her makeup.
Jarvis sent her friend one last message just before 11 a.m. When Wildermuth called her less than 30 minutes later to let her know she was on her way, Jarvis didn’t pick up.
Wildermuth was worried when her friend didn’t show up to meet her, and didn’t respond to any of her messages, but she thought she might have fallen asleep. By the evening, when she still hadn’t heard from Jarvis, and neither had anyone else in their friend group, she went to her home to check on her.
She was worried enough that she called her mother, Tracy Wildermuth, who came to check the suite with Jarvis’s landlord. They discovered her body around 8:30 p.m.
“This shattered my heart, as I’m sure you know, as my screams were heard as I collapsed to my knees outside the house,” Casandra Wildermuth told Farrell in her victim impact statement.
“You watched her take her last breath and say her last words. What you did to her does not, nor will ever, define who she was as a woman.”
According to an agreed statement of facts, police arrived and began canvassing the area. When Farrell answered his door, they noticed scratch marks on his face and forearm.
The officers ended up having a “lengthy discussion” with him inside his suite, where he told them that he’d heard noise in the building earlier. He said he’d been drinking and taking cannabis edibles, but police reported that he didn’t seem impaired.
Farrell was arrested, and court heard that after searching his suite in the days that followed, police found garbage bags with Jarvis’s driver’s licence and health card, her laptop and stained rope and tissues.
They also found bottles of cleaning products and evidence of attempts to clean blood from the shared stairway area between the suites.
An autopsy determined Jarvis died from a combination of head trauma and strangulation. Farrell’s DNA was found under her fingernails.
‘You owe society a great debt’
Another of Jarvis’s best friends, Jaydan Kallis, told the court that what happened has left her with a sense of constant fear.
“As a woman you are taught to be especially vigilant around men, and Lauren was no exception. If this happened to Lauren, who’s to say it couldn’t happen to me?”
Handing down the sentence, Justice Fraser addressed Farrell directly.
“You owe society a great debt after your actions … What did happen was brutal. You have a lot of making up to do for the rest of your life, sir. You’re still fairly young and you have a lot of time.”
Fraser repeated parts of the victim impact statement read by Jarvis’s father, who expressed hope that Farrell will acknowledge the gravity of the harm he’s inflicted and “confront his demons,” while he’s in custody.
With enhanced credit for more than two years Farrell has already spent in the Edmonton Remand Centre, he has about seven years left in his sentence.
When he was given the opportunity to address the court, Farrell said he would “remain silent.”
