The mother of a Sparwood, B.C. man who was found dead in his trailer last fall says she’s “a little more hopeful” now that investigators have identified a person of interest in the case.
Last week, RCMP identified Joshua Freeman as the man who fled the scene after 21-year-old Joel Zimbalatti was shot. Previously, Freeman had only been known by the alias “Slim.”
“It makes me feel a little more hopeful that we’re finally going to put an end to this,” Joel’s mother Toni Zimbalatti told Global News inside her son’s now empty home.
“I’m feeling like I’m ready for this to be over. I’m feeling like I’m ready for answers, ready for some kind of closure. I think we’ve waited long enough.”
Joel was found shot to death in his trailer on Oct. 11. At the time, Elk Valley RCMP said one man fled the scene before they arrived, but another was taken into custody and later released without charge.
Freeman has now been identified as the former, but his whereabouts remain unknown.
Chris Wickett, who called Joel his “little brother,” said he’s frustrated with the pace of the investigation.
“There’s no justice being done,” Wickett said. “It’s easier for somebody to deny any knowledge or responsibility and say they didn’t see anything, they had no part in it, even though they most likely did.”
Joel has been described has funny, charismatic, quick-witted and kind. He would give anyone the “shirt off his back,” according to his mother, and while he loved his family dearly his one true love was a blind-deaf chihuahua named Eli.
“Sometimes I’ll just come in here and sit on the floor,” said Zimbalatti of being in her son’s home. “It’s hard, but at the same time it’s oddly comforting because the trailer still smells like him and you can feel his presence here.
“I just remember how excited he was when he first moved in, how happy he was to show it off to us. He was just so so proud of himself. But it is hard, I wish he was here.”
Zimbalatti put out a public plea for information in her son’s case last November.
Mounties are now asking the public to be on the lookout for Freeman, who was last seen in Kimberley but is known to have ties to the Okanagan. Police believe he is one of the last people to see Joel alive.
Zimbalatti has said she thinks Freeman had been staying with her son periodically, but is unsure how the pair knew each other. She never met or saw Freeman, she told Global News.
The day he died, she said her son was about to cook Thanksgiving dinner for his family, and that week, he was about to start a new job with friends.
“We need justice,” said Wickett. “A mother needs to be able to go to bed knowing what happened, not having a million questions as to why her son is gone.
“It’s not fair. Somebody gets to live their life happily while a mother gets to mourn every day and wonder why.”
Anyone with information on Freeman is asked to call the B.C. RCMP Southeast Major Crime Unit at 1-877-987-8477.