BARRIE—A Brampton firefighter who masterminded his wife’s murder and attempted to conceal it by staging a fiery car crash in Ontario’s ski country left behind a trail of evidence for police to unravel.
Soon after he strangled Ashley Schwalm, 40, to death early last year in their Collingwood home — which they shared with their two young children — James Schwalm sent a series of texts to himself from her phone.