When Savannah Rose Kulla-Davies drove off to meet her ex-partner on Tuesday, her father says he had no idea that would be the last time he would see her.
“I wouldn't have let her go,” he told CBC Toronto in an interview on Friday. “I miss her terribly. And I don't see that changing anytime soon.”
Kulla-Davies, 29, was shot dead that day in the parking lot of a Brampton, Ont., plaza. Her ex-partner, Anthony Deschepper, 38, allegedly killed her before abducting their 17-month-old daughter, prompting an Amber Alert. He was later fatally shot by police at a gas bar in Niagara Falls, Ont.
Until then, Tuesday felt like a normal day, Davies said.
Kulla-Davies got a drink from Starbucks and then made her way to the Brampton plaza to meet her ex-partner, said her brother, Spencer Porter. Now, it's in that plaza that flowers are piling up in her memory.
The purpose of seeing Deschepper was to allow him to spend time with their daughter again, her father said.
“That probably shows a bit of Savannah's character," Davies said. "Even though they were not together, she still wanted to make her daughter available to the girl's father."
'She loved being a mom'Her father and brother said Kulla-Davies was passionate about dance and worked as a social worker for Peel Region before she became a mother of four children.
"She decided that motherhood was going to be her thing. And that's what she's done very successfully."
"She loved being a mom and now she can't be a mom," Davies said.
Savannah Rose Kulla-Davies had four children. Her father and brother say she loved being a mother. (Savannah Kulla/Facebook)Three of her Kulla-Davies's children were from a previous partner, while the youngest was at the centre of the Amber Alert on Tuesday and later found safe, Davies said.
Davies and his family now plan to petition to the court next week to become the official guardians of her youngest, he said.
When she grows older, he said, he'll tell Kulla-Davies's daughter what a wonderful, caring and kind person her mother was.
“She'll ask her brothers and they'll back that up too, because they loved her as well.”
Despite having her hands full with four children, her brother said Kulla-Davies was always supportive.
She was "always so nice to everybody, so sweet to everybody, always would have my back with anything," Porter said.
"If I needed anything, she would still be there for me if I needed her to be there for me."
“We all miss Savannah so much, we all love her so much, and we just wish she could come home, really.”
Her brother Spencer Porter, left, and Ian Davies, her father, speak to a CBC Toronto reporter on Friday. (Mehrdad Nazarahari /CBC)Ex-partner out on bail at time of shootingThe shooting that ended Savannah's life wasn’t the first time Anthony allegedly pulled a gun around her.
Deschepper had firearm charges dating from an incident in 2023 in Brampton, with Savannah being the complainant in the case.
Records obtained by CBC Toronto say Deschepper “intentionally did discharge a firearm while being reckless as to the life or safety of Savannah Rose Kulla Davies,” and noted previous firearm prohibitions from 2006 and 2019.
Written notes also acknowledge the delay in dealing with the case, saying “10 months old - serious charges needs to get moving.”
His defence lawyer, Andrew Edgar, told CBC he "always denied the allegations and planned to contest them in court."
Deschepper's trial was set for March 2026 and he was out on bail when allegedly killing Kulla-Davies, which her father describes as "ridiculous."
"Clearly, the system as we have it today is not serving the community if people are in and out of jail in a minute,” he said.
He added he wished he had known more about her relationship with Deschepper.
“I didn't know as much as I would like to have known, in retrospect. I wasn't a big fan. But if your daughter is in love with someone you put up with that and you hope it improves. Clearly in this case, it went completely wrong through no fault of Savannah's."
Dechepper's death is now the subject of an investigation by Ontario's Special Investigations Unit.
Another woman who was in the car with him was arrested at the scene and has been charged with being an accessory after the fact to murder, according to Peel Regional Police.
Anthony Deschepper, 38, died early Wednesday morning after he was shot and killed by a Niagara Regional Police officer, according to Ontario's Special Investigations Unit. (Peel Regional Police)Revelations of Deschepper's previous charges prompted Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown to call for stricter bail reforms on Thursday. That demand came on the same day that the federal government introduced legislation to change the Criminal Code.
Officials have praised the expansion of reverse onuses, which would put the burden on bail-seekers to prove why they should be out of detention as they await trial.
However, reverse onus was already in place for the firearm charges that Deschepper faced.
Porter said of his sister: "She didn't deserve any of this."