The sister of a Halifax man who was fatally shot in 2016 is speaking out after months of keeping quiet.
Adam Drake, 34, was found guilty of first-degree murder in the killing of Tyler Keizer last October.
But up until this week, Keizer’s family couldn’t discuss that guilty verdict because of a publication ban.
“Quite frankly, I haven’t been able to breathe since I lost my brother,” said Keizer’s sister, Kristin Kravis.
“I just want … everybody to know that my brother was a really great person. He really was. I just want people to remember the good in him, his smile, how he loved his family. It’s all important.”
The publication ban was in effect due to the fact Drake was on trial for another murder: the 2022 killing of rapper Pat Stay. The ban was in place to ensure a fair trial for Drake in the Stay case.
Once the jury in the Stay case was sequestered, the ban was lifted. In under 24 hours, the jury in that case found him guilty of second-degree murder in Stay’s death on Wednesday.
Keizer, 22, was shot while sitting in his vehicle at the corner of Gottingen and Falkland streets in November 2016.
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Drake was charged in 2019 for that crime, but the charge was withdrawn by the Crown in October 2021 — just days before the trial was set to begin.
Stay was killed a year later in September 2022.
“To stand back and know that perhaps if we would’ve kept him behind bars, you know, nobody else would’ve been affected but my family,” said Kravis.
Prosecutors reinstated the charge for Keizer’s murder in October 2022, after Drake was charged in Stay’s death.
Kravis says she came out to support Stay’s family during their trial — describing it as an “out of body experience” watching them go through the same process and with the same accused as her family did months before.
She lit a candle while overlooking the Eastern Passage shore a day before Drake’s guilty verdict on Wednesday, in memory of the two victims.
Kravis says her brother had turned his life around just before his death, and it’s an important fact she holds on to.
“I always remember that my brother died a healed person. He made mistakes. He did. Big ones. People make mistakes. And he paid for his mistakes,” she said.
“He didn’t kill a monster, he killed a king in my eyes.”
Kravis says she’ll never feel completely safe, even after Drake was handed two separate life sentences.
“I’ll always have to look over my shoulder. It’s just the way after you live with trauma.”
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