Chad Reu-Waters (Facebook)

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ST. THOMAS – For 17 years, Ashley Pereira’s body was hidden in a freezer while his family held out hope that he was still alive.

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On Tuesday, Pereira’s killer, Chad Rew-Waters, 48, was told he must serve the same time in prison before he can apply for parole. Subscribe to receive a curated collection of links and highlights from our award-winning breaking news coverage, in-depth analysis and unparalleled investigative weekday features. By clicking the subscribe button you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of our emails. Postmedia Network Inc. | 365 Bloor Street East, Toronto, Ontario, M4W 3L4 | 416-383-2300

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“All murders are gruesome,” Superior Court Judge Kirk Munro said in his decision to sentence Rew-Waters to life without the possibility of parole for 17 years for second-degree murder. “All murders cause pain and sorrow to the loved ones of the deceased. This murder is no different. “What is different and aggravating is the manner and duration of the concealment. For more than 17 years, Mr Waters hid Mr Pereira’s dead body in a freezer. . . . For almost two decades, day after day, (Pereira’s family) did not know where Mr. Pereira was or whether he was alive or dead.” Munroe said Reu-Waters’ “disregard for self-defense was callous” and was one of the determining factors in the judge’s 17-year non-parole period.

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IMPORTANT: Chad Reu-Waters, 48, of Jarvis, who was convicted of the second-degree murder of Ashley Perreira, 33, in 2002 and hiding the body in a freezer for 17 years, was sentenced to life without parole for 17 years. /1 — Jane Sims (@JaneatLFPress) November 1, 2022
Reu-Waters, who sat quietly in the prisoner’s box with his wrists cuffed, was sentenced to another three years, to be served concurrently with the murder sentence, for desecrating human remains. Jarvis, 48, was found not guilty of first-degree murder but guilty of second-degree murder by a jury after a nine-day trial in June in the death of Pereira, 33, a Mississauga man who disappeared in 2002 and whose body was discovered in a discarded freezer found near Port Burwell in May 2019. The case was as strange as it was tragic. The jury heard that Pereira and Reu-Waters had met at the Maplehurst Correctional Complex in Milton while they were both in custody in 2001 and in early 2002 were partners in a computer-related business.

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But then Pereira disappeared, and for the next 17 years, Rew-Waters sometimes bragged, sometimes threatened and sometimes made alcohol-induced confessions about strangling Pereira in a Guelph storage unit and hiding the body in a freezer which he carried several times. The freezer’s last hiding place was at South Coast Hobbies and Rides, a Simcoe hobby shop Reu-Waters operated with his son, Samuel Waters, 26, before it was removed on May 2, 2019, by his son and friends and dumped on from the steep bluff of Lake Erie, east of Port Burwell. The freezer and its gruesome contents were discovered by a hiker on May 6, 2019. The badly decomposed body’s head was wrapped in duct tape and there was still a cord around the neck. The most likely cause of death, a medical examiner testified at trial, was ligature strangulation and asphyxiation.

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The jury heard that Reu-Waters was a notorious braggart, car thief, drug user and drinker who was touted for links to the Mafia and the Hells Angels. He would intimidate his intimate partners with threats of implicating them in Pereira’s death if they ever told anyone. It was after Reu-Waters’ girlfriend went to police with details about the murder that Reu-Waters, who was in custody at the time, told his son during a prison visit to take the freezer out from under a homemade workbench in the basement of the shop and get rid of it. In his sentencing decision, Munroe said he was moved by Pereira’s family’s words in a victim impact statement about their longtime hope that Pereira would be found alive.

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“You didn’t give him that chance. You murdered him and left him in the freezer. You covered his mouth, you covered his face. You didn’t allow him to call us, talk to us, give him a chance to live his life. You took him in cold blood,” they wrote in words directed at Reu-Waters. “I hear you,” Munroe told family members who attended the hearing via video conference. It turned to Reu-Waters’ criminal record that spanned 24 years with 26 convictions for serious crimes including theft, fraud and possession of stolen property starting when he was 21. a continued contempt for the law’. Munroe also pointed to an unflattering pre-sentence report that described Reu-Waters as “narcissistic, manipulative and a habitual liar” and described how Reu-Waters often used “intimidation and psychological manipulation to achieve his goals”.

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That view was echoed in the report by both Reu-Waters’ ex-wife and his son, one of his five children. Samuel Waters, who was sentenced to house arrest after pleading guilty to taking part in the scheme, referred to his father as “100 per cent manipulative”, a man who “would lie any chance he got to make you to do what he wants. “ “He left us in the dirt when I was four years old,” Samuel Waters said in the report. His ex-wife Catherine told the report’s editors Reu-Waters was abusive, couldn’t hold down a job because he didn’t like being told what to do and that “everything he told you is not true.” Rew-Waters, the judge noted, even lied while giving a blanket apology during last month’s sentencing hearing. Reu-Waters said he stopped all criminal activity for 15 years after Pereira’s death, when his criminal record shows he committed 10 serious crimes in five different Ontario cities and towns during the same period.

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Munroe said he did not believe Reu-Waters was remorseful and “indeed, I see no indication from him that he has a real understanding of the profound seriousness of his offending and the profound impact on Mr Pereira’s loved ones”. Some of the jurors made recommendations for parole with terms ranging from 10 to 25 years, with the majority recommending the maximum. Munroe said the jury’s view was just one factor to consider and warned that the sentence was not intended to “avenge murder or the cruelty of hiding the body. “The proposal does not attempt the impossible, to value the life of Ashley Pereira. Nor does the sentence lessen the grief of the family of the deceased,” he said. “Objectivity must never be lost in the horror of the event.” But the nature of the murder, the concealment of the body and Reu-Waters’ long criminal record and contempt for the law factored into his assessment, Munroe said. Reu-Waters has been in custody for 39 months. He still has two pending assault charges adjourned to set new dates on November 28. [email protected] twitter.com/JaneatLFPress

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