LOOKING at the clock, Casandra Wildermuth’s concern slowly grew – it was half an hour since she had been due to meet her best pal Lauren Jarvis for lunch.
Reaching for her phone, Casandra jokingly typed out the words: “Are you still alive?”
Lauren’s best friend Casandra Wildermurth (left) says the killer’s ten-year sentence was pitiful[/caption]
What she didn’t realise was that it would be the last message she’d ever send to her best friend.
Lauren, 27, was killed by her upstairs neighbour, 34-year-old Ryan Farrell, in a brutal attack just months after she had complained about his anti-social behaviour to pal Casandra.
Farrell admitted to beating Lauren with a walking stick and strangling her with a rope, before her body was found hours later on April 2, 2023.
According to Lauren’s mum, she had been beaten so badly by her attacker that she was almost unrecognisable.
She was discovered wrapped in a carpet with her hands and feet bound and a bag over her head after Casandra called Lauren’s landlord to gain entry to her Edmonton apartment.
Her neighbour was arrested after cops knocked on his door and noticed scratch marks on his face and arms.
A post-mortem revealed that Lauren had died from a combination of head trauma and strangulation, with her DNA found under his fingernails.
In return for a guilty plea to manslaughter, Farrell was sentenced to ten-and-a-half years, something that Casandra still struggles with.
Casandra says: “His sentence is a joke.
“To me, it sent a clear message to women: you don’t matter.”
‘Lauren was scared’
Casandra, now 27, and Lauren met while working as nannies in the area of Edmonton, Canada, in June 2020.
With Lauren just two years younger than Casandra, the pair became firm friends.
Casandra says: “Lauren was an excellent judge of character; she’d only need to meet a guy once to know if there was something off about him.
“When my boyfriend and I split, she was there for me.
“‘Casandra, he doesn’t deserve you,’ she said kindly, even though I’d called her in tears at 3.30am.
“In February 2023, when I got a bad fever, Lauren took me to hospital.
“She sat with me for 20 hours and brought me a comforting pink fluffy chequered blanket from her home. I could always rely on her.”
It was around this time that a young man moved into the flat above Lauren’s, and Casandra says he immediately started causing issues.
Casandra recalls: “She told me that he slammed the doors, yelled and played his music really loud.
“His balcony was right above Lauren’s bedroom, and he’d be on it at all hours smoking, making a racket.
“She wasn’t sure if it was directed at her or not, and he hadn’t actually done anything to her. But if Lauren was scared, I trusted her instincts.
“Her landlord told her to call the police and said the couple next door to Lauren were concerned too.”
Casandra and Lauren met through their jobs as nannies and became fast friends[/caption]
But when Casandra hadn’t heard from her friend she began to worry[/caption]
A few weeks later, when the friends were together at Casandra’s mum’s, Lauren expressed further concerns about her new neighbour.
Casandra says: “She said she was scared he would kill her and that she was looking for a new flat.”
‘Are you still alive?’
On the first Sunday in April 2023, the two friends had planned a walk in a local river valley.
Around 10am that morning, Casandra Facetimed Lauren and the pair chatted while they got ready and discussed getting lunch afterwards.
Casandra says: “After about 45 minutes, we ended the FaceTime and then I called Lauren as I was leaving at 11.27.
“But she didn’t answer, which was very unusual for her.
“Lauren was always on her phone, and we spoke and texted hundreds of times a day.
I thought she’d fallen asleep and sent her text jokingly asking if she was still alive
Casandra Wildermurth
“I texted and called again, but got no response.
“We’d arranged to meet at a sports centre, but she didn’t show up.”
The friends had a location-sharing app, which revealed that Lauren hadn’t left her house.
Casandra says: “I thought she’d fallen asleep and sent her text jokingly asking if she was still alive.”
After waiting 30 minutes, Casandra met another friend for lunch but kept calling and texting Lauren.
“By late afternoon, I was getting worried,” she says.
Just after 6pm, she decided to drop in on Lauren, who lived in the ground-floor flat of her apartment building.
Casandra says: “According to the app, she was still home but didn’t answer when I banged on her bedroom and kitchen windows.
“I called our other friends, but nobody had heard from Lauren.
“I saw a curtain twitch at a window in her scary neighbour’s flat as I was making the calls.”
After speaking to other neighbours who said they hadn’t seen or heard from Lauren, Casandra rang the landlord, who said he’d come with the key.
Casandra says: “My mum arrived just after him and told me to stay outside.
“Moments later, she came running out and told me to call the police.
“She told me that Lauren was gone and that she hadn’t done it herself.
“I collapsed, screaming and sobbing.”
Lauren was found unresponsive in her bedroom, restrained and wrapped in a roll of carpet.
Casandra says: “While we waited for the police to arrive, my mind raced, trying to think who’d done this.
“I don’t know why, but the creepy neighbour never even crossed my mind.”
Lying in wait
However, later that night, Ryan Farrell was arrested by police who noticed that his face and hands were scratched.
Casandra says: “Just as Lauren feared, he’d killed her.
“I spoke to her family after the police informed them.
“They’d been told she was beaten until she was unrecognisable, then strangled.”
At her funeral, Casandra read a letter she had written for Lauren.
She says: “I told her she’d never know how special she was and how meeting her was my greatest blessing.
“I finished by saying I knew I could always count on her and that I’d see justice served.”
After the funeral, police told Casandra that they believed Farrell was a steroid-abusing bodybuilder.
They believed he had probably ambushed Lauren as she left home and might have been lying in wait for her.
Just as Lauren feared, he’d killed her.
Casandra
Farrell told the police he couldn’t remember a thing and the police didn’t know his motive.
His DNA had been found on Lauren, but he couldn’t be charged with sexual assault because he’d argued the sex had been consensual and they had no way of proving otherwise.
Casandra says: “His story was ridiculous.
“Lauren was scared of Farrell; she wouldn’t have had sex with him.”
Casandra says that after Lauren’s death, she became fearful and suffered from trust issues.
She says: “I felt like I couldn’t trust any man.
“My only comfort was knowing Farrell would be locked up for life and couldn’t hurt anyone else.
“Lauren loved to hike, so I set up an annual public walk in her honour and to draw attention to violence against women.”
In February 2025, Farrell took a plea deal.
In return for a guilty plea to manslaughter, Farrell was handed a ten-and-a-half-year sentence.
Casandra says: “I was at Farrell’s sentence hearing in April this year, sitting just feet away from him.
VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ‘EPIDEMIC’
Police record more than 3,000 incidents a day of violence against women and girls.
An estimated one in 12 females across the UK become a victim every year in the “epidemic”.
The figure is up 37 per cent in four years and the category now accounts for a fifth of all recorded crime.
A report also says the number of suspected victim suicides is increasing.
Perpetrators are getting younger — with misogynistic social media influencers blamed for a spread of young men’s damaging behaviour.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council and the College of Policing want to see a National Centre for Public Protection to oversee a “whole system” approach to “turn the tide”.
It would involve police, the courts, government bodies and specialist women’s services.
Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blyth said counter-terror methodology would be used to “systematically pursue the highest harm offenders”.
Sophie Francis-Cansfield, from Women’s Aid, added: “Violence against women and girls is a national threat.
“Without meaningful collaboration and action, women and children will continue to be failed.”
Domestic violence minister Jess Phillips said the new Government’s mission was to halve violence against women and girls within a decade.
She promised that it would be treated as “the national emergency that it is”.
“The coward looked at the floor as I glared at him.
“When the agreed statement of facts was read, I learned he’d beaten her with a wooden cane and his DNA had been found under Lauren’s fingernails.
“She’d fought desperately for her life.
“Even though I knew about the sentence, part of me hoped someone in the justice system would have seen sense and given him a harsher sentence.
“The Judge gave him the agreed ten-and-a-half years.”
Justice Jody Fraser said: “What did happen was brutal, you have a lot of making up to do for the rest of your life.”
Reeling from the sentence, Casandra is trying to move on with life without Lauren.
She says: “I’ve still got the pink fluffy blanket Lauren brought to the hospital for me.
He killed the sweetest and kindest person I’ve ever met. Who knows what else he could do
Casandra Wildermurth
“Wrapped in it, I like to think of Lauren as the sweet, generous woman she was and not the victim she became.
“I can’t help thinking of the absolute terror of her last moments though.
“Men keep getting lenient sentences for killing women. That’s not going to change.
“So I’m campaigning for them to get longer non-parole periods.
“They should have to serve three-quarters of their sentence before becoming eligible for parole.
“Right now, it’s a third.
“Which, astonishingly, means with time on remand, Ryan Farrell will be eligible to apply for parole next October.
“If he’s released, I’m moving. I don’t want to live in the same city as that monster.
“He killed the sweetest and kindest person I’ve ever met. Who knows what else he could do?
“The one thing I know for certain though, the justice system can’t and won’t protect me and other women from him.”
Casandra says Lauren was the sweetest, kindest person she’d ever met[/caption]
Casandra had been planning on a walk and lunch with Lauren on the day she was killed[/caption]
