The woman who found her friend's body in a bedroom near the victim's infant son says the release of the man who confessed to the shooting is unfair.
Wade Skiffington was granted bail by a B.C. Supreme Court judge last week as the RCMP reviews the tactics used to solicit his confession nearly 20 years ago.
The man who once told an undercover officer he believed was a crime boss that he'd shot his fiancé because he thought she was leaving him.
Wanda Lee Martin was found dead in her friend's Richmond, B.C. apartment in 1994.
Gail Soper, who'd been hosting Martin at the time, shared her version of events with NTV in St. John's.
"Wanda came to visit me that moring and we just hung out," she said.
"I went to register for school and I left Wanda in my apartment – her and her son – and I was gone 40 minutes."
Soper said she came back and used the buzzer, but Martin didn't open the door.
"So I took my keys out and let myself in and went upstairs and I found her in my bedroom with her son there, and she was dead."
Ian, Martin and Skiffington's son, was just 18 months old at the time.
Soper told NTV it was the worst day of her life.
She then had to endure a long legal process as Martin's partner and the father of her son was charged and confessed during a Mr. Big sting. Soper then had to face the man she believed killed her friend during his trial.
"It was quite terrifying to walk into a courtroom and to see him there and testify and go over pictures and the crime scene, and everything just came back again… It was not a nice feeling," she said.
Then, after years of trying to move forward, there was an update that brought Soper back to that moment again. Alleging the RCMP "set me up big time," Skiffington and his legal team called his confession into question.
They say undercover officers lured him with cash and a job in a fictious criminal organization, scared him with staged violence and suggested his life could be in danger if he didn't confess to the killing. Skiffington claims he is innocent.
His lawyers argued their client should be released from prison on bail until the case has been reviewed by the federal justice minister, a request that was granted earlier this month.
It could take two or more years for the justice minister to decide whether to send the case back to court.
Out on bail, Skiffington is living in Newfoundland, meaning the ordeal is far from over for Martin's loved ones.
"It's kind of disturbing, knowing what I know from all the years of knowing what police have told me, and for my safety," Soper said.
"And for him to be here, it's just… It's not fair. It's not fair to us and our friends that are living here and experienced this traumatic experience. It's not right."
She said she thinks he should be at a halfway house, or living somewhere in B.C. where the crime was committed.
Soper said she speaks to Martin's mother often, and that the whole family is feeling stressed: "It's terrifying to know that he's 10 minutes away, he's in our backyard. It's an uneasy feeling."
She said those who knew and loved Martin will be watching for the justice minister's decision.
"It's not going to be an outcome for him, it's going to be justice for her and for everybody," she said.
