At first glance, it looked as though the mom-of-two had lost control of her car late at night and swerved off the snow-covered road in the bitter cold down a steep embankment.
The vehicle burst into flames, killing Ashley Schwalm, nee Milnes, 40, in a seemingly tragic accident that shocked friends, family and community.
Her husband of 10 years, James Schwalm – a firefighter – was inconsolable, left to raise their two children, aged six and nine, on his own.
The heartbroken trio moved in with his deceased wife’s family as they picked up the pieces of their shattered lives.
Except Schwalm’s grief was a savage lie.
Police eventually determined he had strangled his wife at their three-bedroom home in Collingwood, Ontario, Canada, while his children were sleeping.
He then staged the entire crash site as part of an elaborate murder plot.
A captain with the Brampton fire department, Schwalm first dressed his dead wife in hiking clothes after the murder.
He then left his sleeping children at home alone and drove the body in her 2018 Mitsubishi Outlander SUV to a quiet area near Alpine Ski Club in the Blue Mountains.
At around 6am on July 26, 2023, he doused the vehicle in gasoline and torched it with the body inside using a lighter with his own initials on – JWS – which he left at amid the flaming wreckage.
Surveillance footage captured a person with a large backpack running from the scene.
Schwalm, 40, then methodically embarked on an elaborate cover up to hide his tracks.
He used his mother’s car, which he’d parked nearby, as a getaway vehicle after staging the fake crash.
He also sent a series of texts to himself from his wife’s phone to pretend she was still alive.
In one text, he asked her to fill up gas cans for a snowblower.
Then, pretending to be her, he wrote: ‘Ok I’m going to zip out I think kids will be fine their sleeping’.
In another, as the woman he had just killed in cold blood, he texted: ‘Eww I left the gas cans in my car and it smells.’
One more said: ‘Oh, I have vertigo. I’m going to rush home.’
Later, as he took them to school, he told his two children their mother had left to go on a hike.
Ashley Schwalm, a project manager, was identified using dental records. A post-mortem revealed his wife had been killed by strangulation and that she was dead before the fire.
Two days after the death, Schwalm gave a statement to officers from Ontario Provincial Police, saying he had been walking the family dog in the neighborhood when his wife had apparently crashed her car.
He handed over surveillance footage from their home’s security camera which he claimed showed him leaving the property with their pet – but police later determined the film had been ‘deliberately manufactured.’
Schwalm was eventually arrested on February 3, 2023.
The fairytale marriage began when the couple wed at Craigleith Ski Club, with the bride arriving by horse and carriage.
‘I’ve been picturing that moment since I was a little girl,’ she told Wedding Bells magazine in 2012.
‘I truly felt like a princess and isn’t that how you’re supposed to feel on your wedding day?’
A misspelled 2013 Valentine’s Day tweet to his wife read: ‘Lots of people can say your pretty when they meet you Guys at the bar say your hot but I get to call you beautiful every day.’
But the fairytale began crumbling. Schwalm had discovered his wife’s affair with her work boss in 2022.
She changed jobs and the couple tried marital counselling, hoping to save their relationship.
But he was secretly ‘nurturing’ an affair with her former boss’ ex-wife. Days before the killing, he had told the woman he had strong feelings for her and the woman replied she felt the same about him.
In January 2023, a court heard, he also told a woman friend that he would do whatever it took to make himself happy ‘regardless of Ashley still wanting to make their marriage work.’
Eventually, they were heading for divorce and overnight on the evening of January 26 last year, they had a furious row.
In the days leading up to the murder, Schwalm searched online for ‘alimony.’
He also typed in the questions ‘can you see iPhone history after deleted’ and ‘does a road flare completely burn’.
Schwalm told investigators he had been worried about the potential cost of divorce.
During a social gathering, he asked a doctor present if it was possible to kill someone by snapping their neck like actor Steven Seagal’s character does in his movies.
It emerged that his wife had a $1 million ($712,000 USD) life insurance policy of which he was the sole beneficiary. There was also a $250,000 policy for their children in the event of her death.
During a November 25 court hearing, family and friends provided 21 impact statements before sentencing.
They said ‘AJ’ was a beloved role model, incredible mother, friend and confidant for many.
Her sister described how the family had supported him when he moved into their home following the so-called accident.
‘James deceived us. No amount of justice will ever be enough for the monstrous act he has committed,’ she said.
‘He sat here broken and grieving while we consoled him, even though he knew what he’d done.’
Her father labeled Schwalm a ‘pure narcissist,’ adding: ‘This selfish act only benefited you, Jamie. This was perpetrated by a smart man, a leader, a first responder.’
A family friend said: ‘How on earth could he do this to his own children?’
A cousin said Ashley ‘was murdered by the one person who was supposed to protect her.’
A family friend described how her four-year-old son happily hugged Schwalm after his wife’s death because the youngster ‘trusted firefighter Jamie.’
Then Schwalm ‘picked him up and gave him a long, tight embrace.
‘This image will haunt us for the rest of our lives. We allowed the hands that just murdered our friend to hold our child.
‘I can’t wrap my head around how he could do this to anyone, let alone the mother of his children, a beautiful soul who was loved by so, so many people.
In June this year, Schwalm pled not guilty to first-degree murder, instead admitting to second-degree murder.
Prosecuting attorney Lynne Saunders told the court it was an ‘exceedingly’ brutal murder, ‘thought about, considered, weighed and executed.’
Her counterpart, defense attorney Joelle Klein told the court: ‘This was not the act of an otherwise untrustworthy and violent man.’
Schwalm is facing an automatic life sentence. In February, Justice Michelle Fuerst will determine how long Schwalm will have to be behind bars before he is eligible to apply for parole, which could be up to 25 years.
Weeping, Schwalm said in written statement: ‘I despise my actions and am haunted that they continue to hurt the people I loved and cared for the most. I am ashamed.
‘This is where I need to be, deserve to be.’
A GoFundMe page has been set up to help the bereaved children.
It says Ashley was ‘an amazing mother, friend, sister and daughter. She was as treasured resident of Collingwood and a special member of the Brampton firefighter community.
‘Her greatest joy was her beautiful children. Both of their worlds have been turned upside down and they now need our support, stability, and nurturing more than ever.’
Her brother and his wife are now their legal guardians as ‘they pick up the pieces in the wake of the devastation.’
