A Naramata, B.C., man was handed a life sentence Tuesday for the gruesome killings of two brothers murdered during a drug deal in May 2021.
A B.C. Supreme Court judge found Wade Cudmore guilty of two counts of second-degree murder in September in the killings of Erick and Carlo Fryer.
The 35-year-old watched from prison via video Tuesday as Justice Brenda Brown gave him a life sentence without the possibility of parole for 18 years — meaning he won’t be able to apply for any form of release until May 2039, once time served is factored in.
Cudmore’s sentencing hearing began on Monday with submissions from Crown and defence, and emotional victim impact statements from members of the Fryer family.
Crown asked for two sentences of life in prison with no parole for 18 years. Cudmore’s defence team wanted a sentence of life in prison with no parole for 12 years.
The bodies of the Fryers were found by hikers just hours after they were killed on May 10, 2021, in a ravine off the Naramata Forest Service Road. The brothers had been shot, stabbed and beaten in the head.
A second man, Anthony Graham, was also charged in the Fryer murders but remains at large.
In her victim impact statement, the mother of the Fryers told the court all she can do is cry.
“My heart is torn in a million pieces,” sobbed Jane Dela Paz. “I don’t celebrate Mother’s Day. I stay home and go to the cemetery to visit Carlo and Erick and bring them flowers.”
Carlo Fryer’s wife said the couple’s daughter was only a year and a half old when her father and uncle were killed.
“Carlo only got to celebrate his daughter’s first birthday with her. She just turned five at the end of October,” said Kaylee Fryer. “My daughter didn’t get to know who her dad truly was, and she never will.”
Sister Cyperuz Jade Fryer addressed Cudmore directly during her victim impact statement.
“I have so many questions for you that will forever go unanswered. I will never know if they saw each other die. I will never know if they suffered. I will never know their last words,” she said. “There aren’t enough words to describe what you took.”
Cudmore sat hunched forward with his hands folded in the protected prisoner’s box, wearing a light grey suit, white collared shirt, glasses, with close cropped hair and a slight beard.
Security measures were in place for members of the public attending the hearing in the form of an X-ray bag check and metal detector screening.
Cudmore was originally charged with two counts of first-degree murder, but a 12-person jury convicted him on the lesser second-degree offences.
Generally, first-degree murder indicates the homicide was deliberate and planned. Second-degree murder is defined as a deliberate killing that occurs without planning. The minimum sentence for second-degree murder is life in prison with no parole for 10 years.
In his submissions, Crown prosecutor Alex Willms said the trial determined that Cudmore and Graham were active partners who had arranged to purchase a large quantity of drugs worth close to a quarter of a million dollars from the Fryers, who lived in Kamloops.
The morning before the murders, Cudmore and Graham drove from Penticton to Merritt in Graham’s Ford F-350, where Graham illegally purchased a 12-gauge pump action shotgun from Canadian Tire.
He said the Fryers were killed using three weapons all found at the scene: a hunting knife, a roofing hammer and the Canadian Tire shotgun. Cudmore’s DNA was found on the handle of the hammer.
‘Gratuitously violent’
Willms described the gruesome and numerous injuries sustained by the Fryers as listed in their post-mortem reports.
“The killing of the Fryer brothers was methodical, involved some amount of planning and was gratuitously violent,” he said.
He noted Cudmore has nine previous convictions on his record going back to 2010, including a prior conviction of drug trafficking in 2013, and was under bail conditions, including a firearms ban, when the murders occurred.
Defence counsel Jordan Watt submitted that Cudmore was “living a productive and normal lifestyle” when he suffered a work hand injury and was prescribed drugs that led him into serious addiction and a deeply entrenched drug lifestyle that included selling drugs to support his own habit.
“He has truly lost everything. He has lost his house, his marriage, his employment, his freedom, and he lost his mother,” said Watt.
Cudmore’s mother, Kathleen Richardson, was found dead in her Naramata home one month after the Fryer murders. Two men have been charged in her killing, which the police have said was drug-involved.
In his opportunity to address the court, Cudmore claimed innocence.
“I’m sorry for the Fryer brothers being murdered and for their family,” he said. “I testified that I had nothing to do with the murders, and my story is not going to change. We both have lost people due to this incident. The wrong-doing was selling drugs and hanging out with Anthony.”
Justice Brenda Brown has reserved her decision on sentencing until 2 p.m. on Tuesday.