Emotions ran high outside Invermere Law Court on Monday, as family members and friends of three young men killed in an alleged drunken driving crash awaited the first court appearance for the suspect charged in their deaths.
Haley Jade Watson, who turns 23 this year, is charged with three counts of impaired driving causing death and three counts of dangerous driving in the July 9, 2024, collision in BC’s Columbia Valley.
“I really needed to see Haley and I think she needed to see us and she’s hurt so many people, friends, family,” Janet Dahl-Freeman said.
Dahl-Freeman’s 25-year-old sons Jackson Freeman, Gavin Murray, 21, and Brady Tardiff, 25, were killed when the truck they were riding in went off the highway and down an embankment on Westside Road near Panorama Drive in Wilmer, BC.
Police allege that speed and intoxication were factors. Photos obtained by Global News show the Toyota Tundra was a flattened, crumpled wreck when it arrived at the tow yard.
The suspect survived but was initially hospitalized with what RCMP believed were “serious, non-life-threatening injuries.”
“What she’s done to this community and families — no parent should ever have to go through that,” Dahl-Freeman told Global News in an interview Monday.
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The tragedy has devastated the tight-knit Columbia Valley and Sherwood Park, AB, where the three young victims lived.
Dozens of friends and community members showed up outside the courthouse to support the victims’ families.
“It was important to everybody as a family, as an extended family,” friend Quentin Nicholas said. “We are not all family but it seems we are together in tragedy.”
“It was a big, big hit for all the friends because we were together almost four days a week,” Gage Martin told Global News.
“All the time,” Nicholas added.
Martin remembers fishing, hunting and golfing with Tardif, whom he considered a brother, and Murray, with whom he grew up playing hockey.
“You don’t realize how short that time is until it’s over,” Martin said.
Martin said Murray leaves behind two sisters who will carry on his “legacy” while Tardif’s fiancee and young son will keep his memory alive.
Dahl-Freeman said her son, who achieved his dream by earning his red seal in carpentry, was kind and very compassionate.
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“He was always there if people asked him to help, he was just an outstanding guy,” recalls Dahl-Freeman.
Freeman excelled in lacrosse and played for peewee, bantam and midget A clubs with the Sherwood Park Titans before being drafted by the Junior A St. Albert Miners.
His mother said the Titans organization has since established a memorial scholarship in his name, recognizing not only his accomplishments as a goalie but his growth off the field.
According to Sherwood Park Titans websiteThe Jackson Freeman Memorial Award will honor a graduating student who will go the extra mile to help those in need and spread kindness with their positive energy in all aspects of life. “This was Jackson’s mission in life. Please make it yours.”
Watson arrived outside the courthouse on Jan. 13 in an SUV driven by another woman, but never entered the building.
Instead, the vehicle sat parked for several minutes and a sheriff was seen talking to its occupants.
The BC Prosecution Service said a lawyer attended court representing the accused, who was not inside the courtroom.
The woman driving Watson to court drove away, honking her horn into the crowd before her SUV got stuck in a snowy parking lot. Sheriffs jumped in to extricate the vehicle.
Watson’s next court appearance is scheduled for February 10. Court records indicate it is an application for a warrant.
“We want to see justice,” Nicholas told Global News. “We want to see that they didn’t die for some reason.”
© 2025 Global News, a division of Chorus Entertainment Inc.
