Calgary, Arberta — A 49-year-old cold case homicide was put to rest inside a Calgary courtroom on Monday March 3, 2025 with both the killer and his teenage victim's daughter — who was just seven months old at the time of her mother's death — speaking publicly for the first time since murder charges were announced.
Originally charged with murder, Ronald James Edwards, now 75 years old, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the fatal stabbing of Pauline Brazeau, a 16-year-old who was killed in 1976.
Court of King's Bench Justice Robert Armstrong accepted prosecutor Patrick Bigg and defence lawyer Pawel Milczarek's joint proposal for a 6 and half-year sentence.
In 2023, Edwards, who was 26 years old at the time of the killing, was arrested at his Sundre home after investigative genetic genealogy (IGG) work done by both RCMP and Calgary police officers.
Edwards has 4 and half years left to serve with credit for the time he's spent in custody.
"There are no memories," said Brazeau's daughter Tracy, reading from a victim impact statement. "Nothing shared between her and I, no laughs, no smiles. "We didn't get the chance to share the love of a mother and daughter."
Edwards was offered the chance to address the court. He offered a tearful apology to Tracy. "I'm sorry that your mother was taken from you before you had a chance to know her," he said. "I was a drunken young man… I don't think I was capable of feeling anything, I just drank them away."
