Life in prison for hammer slaying

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This article was published 15/02/2011 (5559 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

POLICE found a four-year-old boy hiding in a darkened, locked bedroom, cowering in fear, after witnessing his drug-addicted father beat his mother to death with a hammer inside their Elmwood home.

Kevin Strong, 30, pleaded guilty Monday to second-degree murder and was given the mandatory minimum sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole for at least 10 years. Strong was set to begin his jury trial but chose to accept responsibility for the crime at the last minute.

Shannon Scromeda, 25, suffered massive injuries after being struck at least 15 times in the back of the head during the April 2008 incident. Strong actually called 911 after he attempted to end his own life by stabbing himself three times in the stomach.

“I think I killed my girlfriend with a hammer,” he told the emergency operator.

The couple’s son saw the entire attack before retreating to his bedroom until police arrived. He suffered no physical injuries but was in obvious “distress by what he witnessed,” court was told. Police tried desperately to save Scromeda’s life but she was pronounced dead at hospital. Strong suffered non-life-threatening wounds.

“These are appalling facts,” Queen’s Bench Justice Deborah McCawley said Monday. “It robbed a wee boy of his mother, and a mother and father of a daughter they loved very much,” she said.

Scromeda had been working as a secretary with the city’s building services department at the time of her death. She had been living common-law with Strong for six years in a home on Manhattan Avenue.

The victim’s mother gave an emotional victim impact statement Monday, describing the family’s loss and intense anger while other loved ones looked on.

“God rest her soul, and for you Kevin, God help yours,” said Debbie Scromeda. “The pain of losing her is beyond words.”

Scromeda is now raising her grandson and said he’s been robbed of the chance to experience many joys in life, including “running to his mom after scoring a goal in soccer or into her arms after school.”

“Nothing I can do will ever bring my grandson his mother back,” she said.

Strong fought back tears as he apologized to his former in-laws for his actions. “I wish there was something I could do to take your pain away,” he told the packed courtroom gallery. “I wish I had an explanation for why this happened but I don’t, I’m sorry.”

Defence lawyer Gerri Wiebe said Strong was struggling with a drug addiction and had fallen off the wagon in the days preceding the slaying. Her client began selling many of his household possessions to get cash for drugs, triggering an argument with Scromeda that ended with her death.

“When he needed a fix there was almost nothing he wouldn’t do to get it,” Wiebe told court. She said Strong had been clean and sober for several months but returned to his old ways when a dealer gave him a “freebie” after paying off an old debt.

“He was someone in the grips of an addiction, actively trying to escape it,” said Wiebe.

Strong has a previous record for mostly property crimes related to his addiction, court was told. He has been in custody since his arrest.

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