Ruth Usick listened quietly on Feb. 18 as the man who strangled her only child pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.
Then she stepped up to the prisoner’s box – a tiny, white-haired grandmother in a baggy sweater and running shoes – and spoke face-to-face to Kenneth Ferguson.
“We forgive you,” Usick said softly.
Ferguson, 43, broke down sobbing, doubling over at the waist and bringing his cuffed hands to his face.
Usick moved in closer, gently rubbed his back and consoled him in the otherwise silent Kitchener courtroom.
“You’re still very much in our hearts,” she told him. “We still love you, Ken.”
The dramatic show of forgiveness came minutes after Ferguson admitted killing his wife, Valerie, 44, in the master bedroom of their Elmira house in April 2008.
It was their son KJ’s sixth birthday.
Ferguson was having an affair with a former co-worker at a Mississauga printing company.
He strangled Valerie after researching how to kill her on the Internet, and then tried to make it look like suicide.
It remains a mystery why Ferguson didn’t just walk away from the marriage if he was unhappy.
“It’s just another level of evil,” Crown prosecutor Steve Paciocco said. “That’s all I can explain it as.”
Dressed in a dark suit, Ferguson offered no insight when he stood up in court to apologize and ask for forgiveness.
“I confess today that I have sinned against God … in a way that defies reality and that I cannot explain or rectify,” he said.
Ferguson was given an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 20 years, in keeping with a joint submission by the prosecution and defence lawyer Tony Bryant.
He won’t be eligible for release until April 6, 2028, exactly two decades after he was arrested within a few days of the killing.
Ferguson was initially charged with first-degree murder, which involves planning and carries a life sentence with no parole for 25 years.
Despite strong evidence Ferguson did plan the killing, Paciocco said a plea was accepted to the lesser offence of second-degree murder to avoid a trial and give the family a certain outcome.
“They need this to be behind them,” he told Justice Steve Glithero.
A devout Christian, Valerie was a stay-at-home mother and Sunday school teacher at Woodside Bible Fellowship Church in Elmira.
She met her future husband in high school in St. Catharines. They married in 1987 and had two kids – KJ,9, and Tasha, 7.
Friends and relatives described her as a thoughtful, caring, whimsical woman.
“Simply put, Valerie lived for God and others,” said Corrine Domzella, her best friend.
Ferguson never had any trouble with the law and held down a steady job.
The couple lived for a time in Calgary, then moved back to Ontario and bought a house in Elmira with Valerie’s parents, Stan and Ruth Usick, four years before the murder.
The Usicks had an in-law suite in the basement of the four-bedroom house on Nightingale Crescent, which was close enough to the kids’ school that Valerie could walk them there.
The night before the killing, she made cupcakes for her son to share with classmates to celebrate his birthday.
Ferguson was supposed to pick up both children to take them to McDonald’s for lunch before his afternoon shift at the printing company.
A keen photographer, Valerie talked to KJ’s kindergarten teacher that morning and took a picture of him to mark the occasion.
Ferguson had been seeing another woman for about a year. They talked of living together in Elmira and the woman had spoken to the children on the phone to get to know them.
He was giving her $500 to $600 a month to help pay her bills and signed notes to her “Your husband, Ken.”
Plans were made several times for the woman to spend the weekend at the family home, but Ferguson kept cancelling at the last minute.
The day of the murder, Ferguson called his in-laws just before 1 p.m. and asked them to pick up the kids for the birthday lunch because he couldn’t do it.
A few minutes later, he went on the couple’s computer, pretended to be his wife, wrote an email and sent it to himself at work in Mississauga.
Entitled “had enough,” the message suggested Valerie was going to kill herself because of a sense of “gloom” she’d had since Christmas.
“I thought I had these feelings under control,” the email said.
Ferguson then met his in-laws and his children at the restaurant, but stayed for just three minutes. Ruth Usick noticed scratches on his nose and ear.
After driving to his office about an hour away, Ferguson called 911 and said he was worried about his wife after reading the email.
He also told the operator he had fallen against a car in the garage the night before, an unsolicited cover story for the injuries to his face.
Two officers arrived at the home to find Valerie on the bedroom floor. She had been strangled.
When told she was dead, Ferguson fell to his knees crying.
Police began investigating an apparent suicide, but quickly grew suspicious.
The morning after the murder, surveillance officers saw Ferguson throw a pair of bloody socks and letters related to his affair into a dumpster.
An autopsy determined it was homicide, not suicide. Ferguson’s blood was found under Valerie’s fingernails, as well as on the floor of their office.
He was arrested three days later at the home of Domzella, who had taken him in while police investigated at the couple’s house.
The two children now live with their elderly grandparents.
Ruth Usick, one of several friends and relatives to give victim impact statements, said they miss having a mother to help with homework, watch them play sports and do crafts.
“Granny isn’t as good as their mom was at that,” she said.
Stan Usick was minding the kids and didn’t go to court.
Through his lawyer, Ferguson handed in a letter he wrote to his children.
Glithero left it up to the Usicks to decide if and when they ever read it.
Brian Caldwell is a reporter for the Waterloo Region Record.