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'This is not right at all:' Victim's mother frustrated with release of son's killer

Eric Mearow — notorious for his role in Wesley Hallam's horrific slaying and dismemberment — was released from custody last month
20220531 Eric Mearow
Eric Mearow was recently released from custody after serving time for killing Wesley Hallam

WARNING: This article contains graphic details that may disturb some readers.

SAULT STE. MARIE - The mother of a Sault Ste. Marie man who was brutally murdered and dismembered in 2011 is emotionally distraught by the news that her son’s killer has been released from custody. 

Last month, Sandra Hallam was informed by members of Sault Ste. Marie Police Service that Eric Mearow — notorious for his role in the gruesome death of Wesley Hallam — would be due for release in late January. 

Police also told her that Mearow is currently staying somewhere in the Sault. 

“I’m not scared at home, but what if I go out in public and run into him somewhere? What’s my reaction? What’s going to happen to me?” said Hallam, who spoke with SooToday on Monday.

“How is this guy just let go all the time? I don’t understand it.” 

Mearow — along with Ronald Mitchell and Dylan Jocko — pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the high-profile court case related to the death of Wesley, who was stabbed during a drug-fuelled house party in January 2011. 

The convictions triggered widespread outrage in Sault Ste. Marie when they were announced in 2016, because it meant those responsible for Wesley’s death would only serve two more years in prison.

Police had originally charged the trio with first-degree murder — which upon conviction carries an automatic sentence of life imprisonment — but the Crown eventually settled on a plea deal due to concerns over “potential frailties” in the evidence.

Hallam says the Crown “did a dirty deed” in its handling of the high-profile murder case, and that “nothing was ever truthfully told,” about what really happened to her son on the night of his murder. 

“It never came out how he tortured my son — I went through five-and-a-half years listening to how they tortured him and then cut him up with a chainsaw,” she said. 

As previously reported by SooToday, Mearow was taken into custody in August 2023 following a number of incidents that allegedly took place a month prior in Sault Ste. Marie, including: 

  • four counts of assault
  • one count of assault by choking 
  • one count of assault with a weapon (motorcycle helmet)
  • five counts of uttering death threats 
  • one count of mischief   

Mearow was also charged with one count of assault and one count of assault with a weapon — namely, a cell phone — in an alleged attack against the same victim in January 2022. 

One month following his arrest, Mearow made headlines yet again when he was charged with mischief for allegedly engaging in a confrontation with a staff member and damaging property at the Algoma Treatment and Remand Centre, according to a news release at the time. 

Mearow's August 2023 apprehension occurred more than three months after he walked out of the Sault Ste. Marie Courthouse a free man after he was initially charged with attempted murder. 

He and co-accused Travis Parsons faced attempted murder charges in a May 2022 shooting incident that took place in the 200 block of Beverly Street. 

The victim in that incident sustained serious injuries after being shot in a residence. A second person was assaulted and threatened at another home on the same street.

In addition to attempted murder, Mearow, 38, and Parsons, 41, were also charged with multiple firearm offences in connection with the incidents.

Mearow was arrested a month later behind a Superior Street residence in the Batchawana Bay area following a police manhunt that lasted several days. However, a preliminary hearing for his alleged involvement in the Beverly Street shooting fell apart due to a key witness failing to show up for court

Mearow and Parsons were “discharged” on the six counts, which included attempted murder and extortion using a firearm, because there was insufficient evidence to proceed to trial. A number of other charges were stayed. 

In 2018, Mearow was sentenced to 42 months in a federal penitentiary after pleading guilty to four weapons-related charges stemming from a police raid of an apartment where he was residing. He was convicted of possessing a loaded, restricted firearm, possession of a prohibited weapon (brass knuckles), and possession of a firearm (.22-calibre handgun) while prohibited from doing so.

And now, he is once again a free man — leaving the mother of a Sault man who was gruesomely killed and dismembered openly wondering who Mearow will potentially victimize next.        

“They’re saying he’s very unstable,” Hallam said of her interactions with police officers leading up to Mearow’s release. “He’s going to end up doing something again, right? He’s so used to being institutionalized, that’s all he knows.”

Hallam is utterly dumbfounded and dismayed by Mearow being given free reign to roam the streets of Sault Ste. Marie again — freedom her son lost on that horrific winter night all of those years ago.    

“This happened to my son, this happened in our town — and now, I’ve got to live in the same town where he is," she said.

"That’s not right. That’s not right at all."

- with files from Linda Richardson