Linda Schweitzer sits quietly on a couch recalling a favourite memory of her son Chris.
He was 13 at the time and the family visited his mom’s uncle who had retired to
“We spent all day on the water rides. We had such a good time,” she says, sitting in the living room of her daughter’s home.
Just an hour after hearing Justice Nancy Mossip deliver a nine-year prison term to the man that killed her “gentle giant,” that happy memory has been replaced by a terrible one.
“All I can see in my mind, all the time, is Chris opening that door and the petrified look on his face when he saw that gun,” his mom says.
“I see it in my mind, over and over again. He would have been so scared.”
The man behind that gun was Sean Haverty, a man who lived two doors down from Chris Schweitzer who for reasons that were never really clear during the court case, didn’t like him.
That boiled over with a drunken day in June, 2015, culminating with Haverty shooting Chris Schweitzer in the neck and killing him.
Haverty was charged with first degree murder but was found not guilty.
He was found guilty of manslaughter and will serve six more years in prison, having been given three years credit for time already served.
“I was really, really hoping he would get the maximum: 25 years in prison. I really didn’t understand why he didn’t get the maximum.”
Chris’s sister Karen Thompson thought Haverty would be convicted of second-degree murder.
“You should not be allowed to get away with being drunk,” Thompson says of the significance Haverty’s inebriated state was given at trial.
Thompson left the sentencing in a rage, telling the judge and lawyers “if you’re all lucky he’ll live beside you when he gets out.”
“I wouldn’t want to see another family go through what we had to. It’s been two years of sheer hell,” says Thompson.
The pain of losing a loved one never goes away, she says. It’s even worse when you lose someone violently the way she lost her brother.
The ripples in their lives created by the death of their brother and son continue to spread.
Thompson now takes medication and is fearful walking the dog, terrified of people walking behind her and afraid when her children leave the house, afraid they “might never come back and I’ll never see them again.”
Making her even more fearful is that an electronic brief containing all Thompson's personal information was stolen during the court proceedings. Her address, phone number included, plus a video of her statement to police.
"For your own protection, you may consider a change in your telephone number," said a letter she received from the local crown attorney's office.
Linda Schweitzer has received counseling and lives in constant fear, not only now but in the future.
“It absolutely petrifies me that he (Haverty) will live not far from me when he gets out,” she says.
Linda Schweitzer says there is no closure with the end of the court proceedings (“I lost my son. I will never see Chris again. How do you get closure?”) nor will she ever forgive the man that killed him.
All she has is her memories of a loving son who was scheduled to come take care of her for a few weeks following some upcoming knee surgery.
“Make sure you include that we all called him the gentle giant in your story,” Linda Schweitzer says as the interview concludes. “Because that’s what he was.”
