Axe murderer Francis Clancy wins parole

Imprisoned axe murderer Francis Patrick Clancy, who bashed in the head of a young born-again Christian man who had befriended him in Ottawa, has been paroled, Cancrime learned.

The 62-year-old Clancy, who is serving a life sentence in a British Columbia prison, was granted release to a halfway house (day parole), despite his repeated infractions, escapes and what the parole board calls his "parasitical life of crime" dating to 1969.

On March 5, 1983, Clancy and an accomplice, James Nelson Wall, were robbing the home of Iain Irvine, a 29-year-old Ottawa man who did volunteer work with ex-inmates. Irvine had befriended Clancy. Irvine arrived at the house unexpectedly and surprised the burglars. Wall held Irvine down on the floor. Clancy fetched an axe and began bashing Irvine's head. At the trial of the murderous pair, witnesses said Irvine might have been conscious for 15 minutes and alive for up to two hours. The killers stuffed him into a trunk and began hauling it outside. When Irvine tried to escape the box, Wall strangled him with a cord, twice. The killers drove 60 kilometres out of Ottawa and dumped the body in a field. Wall eventually led police to the body. He got life in prison with no chance of parole for 10 years. Clancy got life, with no parole for 15 years.

But he's been out of prison many times on passes since his conviction 25 years ago and, at one time, he was classified as minimum security and moved to a low-security prison with no fences and no armed guards. He escaped twice.

Now he's getting another shot at partial freedom. He'll have to live at a halfway house. He's been ordered not to drink alcohol, to avoid consorting with criminals and he has to take any psychological counselling that's ordered.

Here's the National Parole Board record of the hearing held this month at which he was granted parole:



Clancy was the ringleader in the 1983 robbery that left Irvine dead. When Clancy's accomplice in Irvine's murder, James Nelson Wall, was fingered as a suspect in a 1997 Kingston murder, I wrote this story, revisiting the Irvine killing (Wall was convicted in 2002 of first-degree murder in the slaying of his girlfriend, Jutta Weber. He was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years):

Kingston Whig-Standard
Saturday, March 21, 1998

By Rob Tripp

"Don't do this, Jesus loves you, Jesus loves you."
Those were the last words of 29-year-old Iain Irvine, as he lay face down on the floor of a bedroom in his parents' home, moments before his skull was crushed by half a dozen blows from the blunt end of an axe.
It was March 5, 1983.
Irvine had surprised two burglars who were robbing his parents' Nepean home. The thieves hid in the closet of a bedroom. When Irvine came into the room, they sprang out and pushed him to the floor before he could see his assailants.
James Nelson Wall, then 27, held Irvine's head down, and turned his own head away so Irvine couldn't see him.
Wall's lawyer would later tell a murder trial that Wall believed his accomplice, 35-year-old Francis Patrick Clancy, was going to get rope and a blindfold.
Clancy returned with an axe and began smashing Irvine's head.
The trial heard that Irvine could have been conscious for 15 minutes after the attack and alive for up to two hours.
Clancy and Wall put Irvine, who was still alive, into a steamer trunk and hauled it downstairs.
There, they bound and gagged Irvine. Then, Wall tried to strangle Irvine "to put him out of his misery," according to one of the police officers who investigated the murder and testified in court.
Wall and Clancy ransacked the house, then took Irvine's body out of the trunk, wrapped it in a quilt and put it into the trunk of Irvine's car. Clancy drove to an area about 60 kilometres east of Ottawa and dumped the body in a field.
After they pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, Wall and Clancy listened in court to Molly and Alex Irvine recount the trauma of having their only child murdered in the family home.
"We can still see where Iain's blood has soaked into the floor boards," Molly Irvine told the court. "We can never forget where he died."
Irvine said her son knew Clancy and Wall from a prison fellowship program where he had befriended them.
"Iain was very religious and believed strongly in helping others," Irvine said. Her son had even brought Clancy to the family home. On one of those trips, Clancy spotted a stack of savings bonds, and plotted the robbery.
Iain Irvine trusted Clancy because he claimed he was a born-again Christian who had given up his life of crime.
"As you know, Clancy's response was to betray Iain's trust and, with the help of his evil friend Wall, to murder him in a most foul way," Molly Irvine said.
Clancy was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 15 years. Wall got life with no chance of parole for 10 years.
Wall was granted full parole in 1993, and has lived in Kingston since. He refuses to say he is a killer.
"In 1983 somebody died and I was there," Wall says in an interview. "I didn't kill anybody then and I didn't kill anybody now ... "
Wall says he was a troubled man in 1983 with a long record of property offences.
"I was in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong person or group of people," he says.

My colleague Arthur Milnes, wrote this story, after interviewing Irvine's mother and after Wall's conviction in 2002:

Kingston Whig-Standard
Monday, February 11, 2002

By Arthur Milnes

There are no pictures of grandchildren on 76-year-old Molly Irvine's walls. In the twilight of her life, she's completely alone in her suburban Ottawa home.
Alex Irvine, her husband and best friend, died at the age of 80 a year ago. Her only sibling is an ocean away in Great Britain.
There is a terrible pain associated with the family home she has refused to leave.
"People have said to me, 'How can you live in the house?' but it doesn't go away just because you move away," she said.
"I have good friends ... you have to learn to live with it. Otherwise, life is impossible."
Jim Wall is responsible for her pain.
"I would think him capable of anything," says Irvine.
Nearly two decades ago, in her house, Wall and another man, Francis Patrick Clancy, killed Irvine's only child, her 29-year-old son Iain.
Irvine talks of leaving her beautiful home, perhaps finding something smaller. She'd have to first pack her late husband's beloved books and other family treasures.
That's in the future.
Today, she has agreed to talk about the past - a past that still sears her soul with sadness.
Irvine looks carefully at the identification and business card she's been offered before letting a visitor inside. She is friendly and welcoming but her sadness is palpable.
Her son was murdered almost 20 years ago, on March 5, 1983. Clancy battered Iain Irvine's skull with an axe, then Wall strangled him with an electrical cord.
When Iain arrived at his parents' home early that morning, he unwittingly interrupted Wall and Clancy, who were robbing the house.
When Irvine walked into his upstairs room, the burglars sprang from the closet and pushed him to the floor before he could see either of them.
Wall's lawyer - his client remained silent - would later tell a judge that Wall believed his accomplice was going to get a rope and blindfold.
Wall was left alone with Iain, who did not struggle but begged for his life.
"Don't do this, Jesus loves you, Jesus loves you," Iain Irvine said as he lay pinned to the floor, with Wall's knees pressed down on his arms.
Clancy returned with an axe and began smashing Irvine's head with the blunt end.
Wall and Clancy did not realize the beating had not killed him. Iain Irvine could have been conscious for 15 minutes after the attack and alive for up to two hours, experts concluded.
The intruders put Irvine in a steamer trunk and hauled it downstairs. Irvine lifted the lid and tried to escape.
Wall ripped an electrical cord from a nearby timer and strangled the victim and then closed the lid. Again Irvine, clinging to life, opened the trunk lid.
Wall strangled him again with the cord, an act he would later claim was a mercy killing, designed to put Irvine "out of his misery."
After rushing home from Florida, Molly Irvine and her husband last saw their son in the morgue at Ottawa General Hospital.
Without speaking, Molly Irvine places her hand across her throat to describe how the ligature marks from where Wall strangled her son could be seen clearly on his body at the morgue.
She can still see them today.
In one of the first victim impact statements ever heard in a Canadian court, Irvine tried to put the family's pain into words before Wall and Clancy were sentenced.
"We can still see where Iain's blood has soaked into the floor boards," she said, on Oct. 21, 1983, in an Ottawa courtroom.
"We can never forget where he died."
She said her son was a religious man who believed strongly in helping others. Iain, a library technician in an Ottawa hospital, put his beliefs into practice and worked with prisoners in a fellowship program.
He later allowed Clancy to move into his apartment.
Today, Molly Irvine says she was suspicious of Clancy when her son brought him to her house.
A mother's instincts proved to be correct. While visiting the Irvine family home, Clancy spotted some savings bonds and began to formulate his robbery plot.
"I didn't know he'd been a prisoner," she told The Whig-Standard. "He said he was a born-again Christian. Hah."
She leaves the living room for a moment and returns with two pictures of Clancy she's kept all these years. He is at the church, washing dishes. The pictures have been pinned up and in one, Clancy's eyes are poked out.
"As you know, Clancy's response was to betray Iain's trust and, with the help of his evil friend Wall, to murder him in a most foul way," her victim impact statement continued.
After pleading guilty to second-degree murder in Iain's death, Wall received a life sentence with no eligibility for parole for 10 years. Clancy, the ringleader, also received a life sentence with no eligibility for parole for 15 years. He remains in prison in B.C.
Mrs. Irvine is still serving a sentence of her own. She will never be free of the pain her son's murder brought.
She said she and Alex did the best they could after her son's death. The couple rarely spoke of Iain's murder but it haunted them, especially on anniversaries and other special days.
"For the first year, we were like zombies," she said.
Irvine shakes her head when told that the woman Wall killed in 1997, Jutta Weber, was dismembered and taken in her own car to a swamp north of Kingston, where her body parts were scattered like household trash.
Wall and Clancy bundled her son's bloody body, wrapped in a quilt, into the back of Iain's car, and drove to an isolated area 60 kilometres from Ottawa. They had removed the body from the steamer trunk after discovering it would not fit in Irvine's car.
They discarded the body in a remote woodlot off a rural road.
In 2000, Donald Gazley, a friend of Wall who was the Crown's star witness in the Kingston case, led police to Weber's remains, along a remote stretch of Jones Falls Road.
Gazley took investigators to the spot after cutting a deal for lenient treatment as an accessory in Weber's murder.
In 1983, Wall was subject to a long police interrogation. He agreed finally to take police to Iain's remains.
"It all sounds familiar, doesn't it," Molly Irvine said.
Without Wall's help, Ottawa police couldn't prove a murder had taken place - despite the blood they found in the Irvine home and in Iain's car - until they had a body.
In 1993, Wall was granted full parole and decided to live in Kingston.
After Weber's disappearance, Wall agreed to an interview with The Whig-Standard - the only time he has ever spoken publicly about the case.
"In 1983 somebody died and I was there," Wall said. "I didn't kill anybody then and I didn't kill anybody now ... I was in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong person or group of people."
Molly Irvine glares when she hears Wall's comments.
"You'd have to judge that for yourself," she said. "I should say the parole board has something to answer for."

In granting Clancy release, the parole board concluded that the risk in releasing him is "manageable" and "not undue."

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Cop killer Laurie Bell gets another shot at freedom

Imprisoned cop killer Laurie Ann Bell (inset), who was caught consorting with a male prison guard the last time she was free on early release from prison, is getting another shot at freedom. This time, not surprisingly, she's being ordered to report all "intimate relationships and friendships" to her parole supervisor, with whom she has to make contact at least four times a month. An internal parole document (available after the jump) sets out all the conditions, including the requirement that she stay at a halfway house.

Winnipeg Free Press reporter Mike McIntyre broke the story last year of Bell's liaison with a Corrections Canada employee and he's still on top of developments in the case. Bell is getting out on statutory release. It's automatic early freedom given to most convicts so they can serve the final third of their sentences in the community under supervision. In this case, parole authorities imposed a host of special conditions after conducting a paper review of Bell's case. Here's the internal document produced last month outlining the conditions and the overview of Bell's case:



» Read more about Bell's case, including more parole documents

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Mark Bedford: A sex predator you won't see coming

Mark Bedford might be the most non-threatening sex predator I've met in more than 20 years of writing about bad guys. That' s the scary part. At 24, he doesn't look like he shaves. He has a smooth, baby-face. He's slight and hunches his shoulders like a self-conscious teenager. He speaks softly, often averting his eyes from a listener, and often mumbles. He's reasonably attractive. There's nothing exceptional or remarkable about his physical appearance. He just looks average. He certainly doesn't look like the kind of guy who would blackmail a 12-year-old girl into simulating sex with her family dog, in front of a webcam, while he recorded the act and masturbated to it while planted in front of his computer. But that's the kind of thing that put Bedford in prison. Seasoned police investigators in Ontario believe he is one of the most prolific online sex predators they've come across so far.

Bedford had a parole hearing December 4, 2008, at medium-security Warkworth Institution, near Campbellford, Ontario. I was there. It was Bedford's first appearance before the board since his conviction in 2008 for 10 crimes, including commit/incite bestiality, luring a child under age 14 by computer, several child pornography offences, two charges of extortion and criminal harassment – though authorities believe he committed many more crimes and may have preyed on hundreds of victims. He was ordered held behind bars until his sentence expires, because he's considered a high risk to commit another sex crime involving a child if he's granted conditional, early release. This is a fairly rare move by Corrections and parole authorities, called detention. Just 248 federal convicts were detained last year, while nearly 8,000 walked out of prison gates before their sentences expired. There's good reason to be worried about Bedford, a shy, milquetoast character who does not seem to have come to terms with his deviance. He underwent sex offender testing in prison, and tried to trick the testers. He admitted this during his parole hearing. He never said "sorry" to his victims during the two-hour grilling by parole board members and he seemed painfully reserved when it came to answering direct questions about sex. He made it clear that he doesn't like the labels he's earned, like pedophile and predator. All of which leads to the inescapable conclusion that even if Bedford is offered the treatment he needs to help curb his deviant desires, it might do no good.

Here's the full written record of the parole hearing:



Below is the story that appeared in The Kingston Whig-Standard the day after the hearing:

The Kingston Whig-Standard
Saturday, December 4, 2009

By Rob Tripp
A baby-faced Internet sex predator who may have victimized hundreds of young girls from a computer in his parents' Kingston home is too dangerous to set free early from prison, the National Parole Board says.
After a revealing two-hour hearing yesterday at Warkworth Institution, a panel of three board members ordered Mark Gary Bedford, 24, be kept behind bars until his sentence expires in March 2011.
The board did not explain its decision, though members discussed the findings of experts who have assessed and treated Bedford and concluded he is a pedophile who is a high risk to reoffend, even after treatment. Experts aren't certain if he prefers girls who are pre-or post-pubescent.
His victims were aged nine to 15.
"I have a big problem that needs addressing," acknowledged Bedford, who spoke in short sentences, often providing 'yes' or 'no' answers unless pressed.
When he was caught, Bedford told a probation officer that his victims were liars and that the police were incompetents looking for a scapegoat. He showed no remorse. At yesterday's hearing he claimed that he now knows his actions caused serious harm to the victims and that he has "deviant" sexual interests, though he never used the word 'sorry.'
He admitted calling his victims liars.
"At the time, yes," he said. "I didn't like the image that they were portraying of me."
Parole board member Michael Crowley asked if he knew then that they were not lying.
"Yes, part of me still believed they were lying," Bedford said. "Part of me was still in denial."
Bedford's mother and father, who watched the hearing intently from the back of the cinder block room at the medium-security prison, left swiftly after the decision. His mother hugged him and patted his back. They refused to comment.
As he had done for most of the hearing, Bedford displayed little emotion, save for a moment when he described being dumped by a high school girlfriend. He grew red-faced and appeared choked up.
The parole board noted that experts who have dealt with Bedford describe him as appearing flat emotionally.
The proceeding marked the first time his comments about his crimes and his explanations could be captured publicly, because he pleaded guilty and avoided a trial.
Crowley zeroed in on the findings of experts who reported that Bedford showed little understanding of his crimes and that he minimized harm to his victims, even in the case of a 12-year-old girl he blackmailed into simulating sex with a family dog in front of a camera.
Bedford pleaded guilty to inciting a child to commit bestiality.
"You minimized it," Crowley offered.
"That was at the beginning of the (treatment) program because I didn't like that charge," Bedford explained. "It was gross."
"You didn't like the charge?" Crowley retorted, incredulously. "It's what you did."
Crowley noted that after Bedford's arrest, he expressed anger that Canadian authorities considered his predation of girls in England.
"I was still upset at my charges," Bedford said.
"You were upset at your charges?" Crowley asked. "You were angry that you were caught."
No, Bedford insisted, "that I put my family through this."
Crowley noted that the high profile case propelled his family into an unwelcome media spotlight.
Bedford explained that his online deviance began at age 16, when he started looking at photographs. He sometimes received pictures from older, experienced online pornographers.
At age 19, he sought to force young girls to perform sex acts in front of webcams, typically by hacking into their online accounts and masquerading as friends. He would convince them to undress, then use the photos he captured to blackmail the girls into performing more explicit acts.
Bedford said he did it, "for control" and "for my own excitement." He could not clearly explain why he moved on from pictures to victims.
"That was more real at the time, live," he said. "You could talk to them."
He grudgingly acknowledged, as Crowley grilled him, that he masturbated each time a girl performed for him, though he mumbled through parts of his answers, in apparent embarrassment. He claimed he never masturbates in prison, then admitted he does it once a month.
He was asked why just once a month.
"I feel guilty to do it," he answered. "It brings up memories of being arrested sometimes."
So you feel guilty you got caught, not because you hurt people? Crowley asked.
"It's the victims," Bedford answered.
"You sure?" "Yes."
"Or are you saying that because you think it's the right answer?" Crowley wondered.
"No, because it's true."
Bedford was asked if there were more than 63 victims who are named in files.
"Ahhh, possibly," he answered. "I'm not sure though, I can't recall every one of them."
Bedford tried to trick sex offender experts who assessed him several times, including testers who used a device attached to his penis to measure his response to deviant scenarios.
"I tried to manipulate all of them," Bedford admitted.
Crowley noted that Bedford scored high on tests that suggest he always seeks to cast himself in the best light possible. Bedford didn't aggressively seek treatment when he was imprisoned and was twice warned he might be kicked out of a treatment program.
"I didn't think I needed it," Bedford said. "I didn't think I was that damaged."
He confessed he saw himself as "sick."
Bedford has explained to counsellors that he spent seven to nine hours a day on the computer, the bulk of that time playing online war games.
At the hearing, he did not agree with the characterization that he was a loner, or nerd with few friends. The former St. Lawrence College student claimed he has friends on his protective custody prison cellblock, "good guys" who look out for him, because he is a slight, young man.
His placement in the prison, and changes to Corrections Canada's programming policies, have created a conundrum. Experts at the regional treatment centre inside Kingston Penitentiary, where Bedford underwent high-intensity sex-offender treatment, recommend he take a medium-intensity sex-offender treatment program at Warkworth.
Corrections says Bedford can't take the program.
"The board and CSC have a conflict about this," Crowley said.
Bedford's prison parole officer, Michelle Aylward, said she doesn't know how Bedford can access the treatment.
At the beginning of the hearing, Aylward said it's her opinion that Bedford will behave if he gets early release.
"I think he'll abide by conditions ... what he'll do beyond his warrant expiry can be concerning," she said.
Bedford was charged with a sexual assault but the charge was withdrawn.
He told the parole board it was consensual sex at his parents' home with a 16-year-old girl, when he was 19. The girl was likely "confused" about his age, he said.
"She started it," he said. "She exposed her breast."
They began to fool around.
"We kissed, I, ah, masturbated her, got her off," he said. "Afterward nothing else happened."
The girl went to police and Bedford was charged. He claimed that she reported the incident because he had hijacked her online account after she would not leave him alone.
Kingston lawyer Michael Mandelcorn, who acted as an assistant for Bedford, told board members that Bedford has family support and he appears to have shown more maturity since he was imprisoned.
Mandelcorn said it wasn't in Bedford's best interest to admit trying to manipulate sex offender tests.
"It's not good but the good part about that is that he admits it," he said.
Crowley expressed concern about how Bedford can be supervised in the community, given the ubiquity of the Internet, to ensure he isn't online, hunting victims again.
Bedford was asked if he had any final words at the conclusion of the hearing, before the board considered its decision.
"No," he said. "I'm good."

Bedford's sentence expires in March 2011. That's when Corrections Canada will have to set him free.

Past stories:

» Bedford sentenced to three years in prison
» Bedford's crimes a "form of torture," expert says

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And then there were three - escaped cons

The tally of violent cons to escape a minimum-security federal prison in Kingston has risen to three this year with the disappearance yesterday of Kevin Douglas Rice (above left). Rice was last seen at Frontenac Institution, a pen with no fences and no armed guards, at 8:15 a.m., November 26. Staff realized he was gone during a head count at 11:30 a.m. Other escapees this year are Kenneth McBain (centre), who bolted July 6 and is still on the loose and Andrew Wood (right), who was caught days after his escape in June.

In one of the bank robberies he pulled in Ottawa, Rice pointed a loaded gun at an unarmed bank security officer. In a hearing in April 2008, Rice told the National Parole Board that he "didn't think" he would have used the gun.

Rice's parole records (in full after the jump) also reveal that he has a longstanding cocaine addiction, an "abysmal" record of failure while free in the community on conditions, and, his most recent crime was a jewelry store robbery in which he and a gun-toting accomplice terrorized the shopkeeper-owner couple. You won't find any of that detail in the bland news release issued by Corrections Canada, which also appears after the jump, about Rice's escape.

This e-file includes two documents, the record of Rice's parole hearing in April 2008, when he was denied day parole and an appeal decision upholding the decision in November:



Corrections Canada news releases are typically devoid of detail when it comes to convicts. Officials usually rationalize this with the tried-and-true explanation that privacy laws prevent disclosure. You wouldn't really understand the kind of threat Rice poses if you only read this, the release issued yesterday by Corrections Canada about Rice's escape:



The Brockville Recorder and Times carried this detailed account of the aftermath of Rice's robbery of a Brockville jewelry shop:

May 7, 2005
By Jack Walker

It was a daring and violent daylight robbery that destroyed the life savings and ambitions of a Brockville business couple.
Last September 4, Darlene Dorion was standing behind the counter of Positive Jewellers at 62 King Street West while her husband Lionel worked in a back office.
Shortly after 3 p.m., two men, one brandishing a gun, the other a mini sledge-hammer, barged into the store.
Darlene was thrown to the floor and ordered not to get up.
"Don't make me use this on you," the gunman warned. "I don't want to have to kill you."
Her husband could see what was happening from his office. Fearing something might happen to his wife and not wanting to alarm the robbers, he yelled out "everything is fine."
The two thugs ordered him to the floor and threatened to kill him.
After ransacking the office, the pair began smashing display cases in the store, one with the hammer; the other with the butt of his gun. Darlene suffered a minor laceration from the flying glass as the thieves shattered virtually all the cases in the store and stuffed the jewelry into duffel bags.
The robbers then exited the store, jumped into a van that had earlier been stolen from the 1000 Islands Mall and drove off.
The stolen cache was valued at $125,498 and included wedding rings, bracelets and studded earrings. None of the jewelry was insured and, to date, none has been recovered.
But one of the thieves inadvertently left something behind - bloodstains on the doorknob and inside one of the display cases.
Subsequent analysis matched the samples to the DNA profile of Kevin Rice, an Ottawa drug addict with a lengthy criminal record. Testing showed there was only a one-in-1.5-trillion chance another person would have the same profile.
Friday, Rice pleaded guilty to robbery, unlawful confinement, uttering death threats and carrying a weapon - a hammer. He also pleaded guilty to stealing medicine and damaging a medicine cart in the emergency department of the Kemptville District Hospital three months earlier.
Ontario Court Justice John Waugh sentenced Rice to 62 months in the penitentiary, citing the horrific impact the crimes had on the Dorions.
"Unless you went through this yourself, you'll never relate to how I feel," Darlene wrote in a victim impact statement. "I thought I was going to die and words cannot describe how I feel."
She still suffers from depression and hasn't been able to return to the store for fear her assailants might return.
In addition to the $125,000, $1,600 damage was done to the display cases and the store was closed for three days after the robbery.
"Any chance of total retirement that we were working for is now gone," she said.
Lionel Dorion said he still has nightmares of getting shot or killed and fears for his wife's life.
The 62-month sentence will run consecutive to a 53-month term Rice is now serving for bank robbery and other offences.
Lawyer Jerry White argued for a further four-year consecutive term to allow his client to get treatment for his cocaine addition while not destroying his future hopes.
Rice had been in a treatment program but had a relapse and was on a drug-fuelled crime spree when he pulled off the Brockville robbery, White added.
Rice, 34, told the court he was sorry for what happened and looked forward to getting help for his drug problem.
Crown attorney Curt Flanagan urged a six-year consecutive term, saying the jewelry store heist was premeditated and systematic.
"He didn't fall off the wagon, he jumped off," he said.
Flanagan said the accused had shown no regard for his victims and robbed them of their retirement fund.
"Why?" he asked "They lost it because this gentleman with 20 previous convictions wants to put it up his noise or other places."
Rice's gun-toting accomplice is unknown to authorities and remains at large.

Ontario's elite fugitive hunters, the Repeat Offender Parole Enforcement Unit (think U.S. marshals - but Canadians) are hunting Rice. He is five foot nine inches tall, weighs 217 pounds and has short grey hair and hazel eyes. He has a flame tattoo on his right forearm and a wolf tattoo on his left arm.

(UPDATE, NOVEMBER 30, 2009: Rice was recaptured on the weekend in Ottawa.)

Related
» Killer escapes, with help from Frontenac psychologist, his girlfriend
» Serial stick-up bandit didn't like being a victim

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Brenda Martin's parole tightened after booze trouble

A Trenton, Ontario woman jailed for fraud in Mexico, and who became a celebrity convict, whisked back to Canada on a private jet at a cost to taxpayers of $83,000, is in trouble with parole authorities, a National Parole Board document obtained by Cancrime reveals. The board has slapped a slew of stricter conditions on Brenda Martin (above) after "recurring incidents of excessive alcohol consumption." Read the complete decision after the jump.



Martin was heralded by some supporters as an innocent swept up in a corrupt Mexican justice system. She gave teary interviews, threatening suicide if she wasn't released from a Mexican jail. She was convicted of fraud and served two years behind bars before the Canadian government stepped in, in the face of a vocal public campaign by Martin supporters. In early May 2008, Martin was flown back to Canada and sent to a federal women's prison in Kitchener, Ontario. She was paroled within a week (read 2008 decision), with just two special conditions attached to her release: that she must disclose all financial dealings to her parole supervisor and she was ordered not to associate with criminals. Two days ago, the parole board put a tighter leash on Martin, imposing four new conditions. A parole document dated November 24 explains:

The Board is in receipt of a submission from the Correctional Service of Canada recommending the imposition of the above noted special conditions in light of difficulties recently encountered during your release. There have been recurring incidents of excessive alcohol consumption commencing in July 2009 and you were heavily under the influence when you engaged in [deleted in doc] behaviour by [deleted in doc] on September 16, 2009.

When Martin was paroled last year, the board had noted a previous drunk driving conviction. It has now ordered her to abstain from buying or drinking booze. She's barred from going to places where the primary business is alcohol sales and she has to follow a treatment plan and counselling arranged by supervisors, "to address difficulties in the areas of substance abuse issues." She's also required to follow psychological counselling arranged by her parole supervisor to "address personal and emotional issues," according to the November 24 document.

Parole board members refused to impose that latter condition when she was paroled in May 2008, although it had been recommended at the time by Corrections Canada staff.

The new parole document also reveals that Martin appears to be now staying at a halfway house, an arrangement that wasn't required when she was first freed on full parole. Freed inmates are usually placed at a halfway house when they're released on day parole, but Martin got full parole. This is an indicator her parole is not going well. The document notes:

You are not emotionally stable but you are amenable to treatment to help you deal with stress and depression. While you appear to have responded favourably to the enhanced supervision and the additional structure provided by the halfway house, your insight into your offence cycle is oscillating and you remain fragile.

Martin was convicted in Mexico of participating in a $60-million Internet scam run by Canadian Alyn Waage. He was convicted of fraud in 2006. Mexican investigators said Martin, who worked as Waage's chef in Puerto Vallarta for 10 months, accepted a severance package knowing that the cash came from the scam.

Martin maintained her innocence, saying she didn't know about Waage's fraud. Waage corroborated her story.

This parole decision will no doubt draw close scrutiny in Ottawa, since Martin's case became highly politicized. She's one step away from having her parole revoked, which would be humiliating for politicians who rallied to her aid.

Previous post: Documents reveal parole dispute

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A bank robbing candidate for geographic profiling

View Halfway house holdups in a larger map

James Freeman is a serial screwup. He's also a drug-addicted bank robber. And he appears territorial, perhaps to the point that geographic profiling could be used in future to catch him. The map above shows that Freeman may not have strayed far when he escaped from a federal halfway house in Kingston, Ontario Oct. 1 and allegedly began robbing banks.

Parole records reveal what authorities describe as Freeman's "dismal" and "terrible" conditional release history. He keeps getting out, despite the fact that assessments peg him as a high risk to commit new, violent crimes. Note that these records show that Freeman had fouled up on early prison release roughly three months before his latest escape and new charges. In the first week of October, when Freeman was supposed to be under supervision at the Corrections Canada halfway house attached to minimum-security Frontenac Institution in Kingston, he took off and two nearby banks were robbed. He's charged with both holdups. The first robbery was Oct. 3 at a CIBC branch in a big-box shopping mall. It's just over 2.5 kilometres from the halfway house to the CIBC, straight down a major road where the halfway house is located. Two days later, a Bank of Montreal branch across the street from the mall was robbed. No one was hurt in the holdups, but Freeman's records show that he isn't averse to terrorizing clerks and customers when he stages holdups, using knives and other weapons. Geographic profiling, a technique pioneered by a Canadian, Kim Rossmo, uses the locations of a connected series of crimes to help investigators find the perpetrator. It has been used successfully to catch bank robbers. The technique shows that many crooks don't stray far from a familiar hunting ground, whether they're serial killers, rapists or bank robbers.

Here are five National Parole Board decisions that expose Freeman as a complete failure when it comes to rehabilitation. Every time he's been released early from prison under supervision, he has fouled up. He has resisted treatment, has drug addictions and has ongoing mental health problems. (Every time you see "Page 2" in the top right corner, you're at the beginning of a new parole decision).



Here's my story that was published in the Kingston Whig-Standard after Freeman's arrest:

A federal convict on early release from prison with ties to motorcycle gangs and who had disappeared from a halfway house has been charged with two bank holdups in Kingston committed over three days.
James Christopher Freeman, who has a lengthy history of violence and repeated failures on early release, was arrested Tuesday and charged with two counts of robbery and obstructing police.
The CIBC branch at the Kingston Centre was robbed Oct. 3 and the nearby Bank of Montreal branch on Bath Road was robbed Oct. 5 by a man wearing a yellow construction helmet.
Freeman, 33, was at the halfway house inside Frontenac Institution on Bath Road after he was freed from prison on statutory release. It is automatic freedom granted to most inmates so that they can serve the final third of their sentences in the community under supervision.
The National Parole Board imposed a special condition, ordering Freeman to live at the halfway house, because of concern about the risk he posed.
“You have a violent criminal history that includes convictions for aggravated assault and robberies and the most recent clinical report from March 2008 concludes that you pose a high risk for violent re-offending,” states a National Parole Board document dated Sept. 22.
The board revoked Freeman’s statutory release in the decision, marking the third time he had fouled up while free from prison, by taking drugs, violating conditions and committing new crimes.
The board wrote that Freeman has a “terrible conditional release history.”
Freeman was released from prison June 11 this year, under supervision. He disappeared from a community facility on June 19 and turned himself in to police on June 26. A search turned up tobacco and ecstasy hidden inside his body.
Investigators discovered that Freeman had staged his suspension and return to prison so that he could smuggle the contraband into the penitentiary.
He was convicted of possession for the purpose of trafficking and had 45 days added to his sentence.
Parole records note that Freeman has a number of mental health problems, may have old drug debts with a motorcycle gang and has a history of using knives and other weapons in robberies.
An assessment in March this year noted he has not taken any prison programs to address his problems and has “high scores on the Psychopathy Checklist.”
He was back in the halfway house this fall and disappeared on Oct. 1, two days before the first bank holdup.
Corrections did not issue a release when Freeman disappeared Oct. 1.
“We don’t when it comes to community offenders who go unlawfully at large,” said Holly Knowles, a spokeswoman for Corrections Canada. “We notify the appropriate police agency and it’s up to them whether a public notification is appropriate.”
Kingston Police did not issue a release about Freeman.
His latest prison sentence is a seven-year, one-month term for 13 crimes, including two robberies and a variety of property crimes including break and enter and theft.
His sentence was scheduled to expire Oct. 29.

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Lahey's laptop had pix of 8 year old boys: Document

CBC did great work, breaking this story, by ferreting out the background document filed by investigators in order to get a search warrant for Catholic Bishop Raymond Lahey's (above) computer and other digital devices. Lahey is facing child pornography charges. While the story is a demonstration of solid, basic investigative reporting, CBC failed to make it easy for online readers. They posted the document, with portions excised, only as a PDF. I've converted it to e-document format and posted it here, for easier reading.

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Escapee Evjen too dangerous to release

The National Parole Board has ordered serial bank robber Shawn Evjen (inset) detained in prison until the very last day of his prison sentence, June, 15, 2010, because he's a dangerous crook who is a "very high" risk to commit new, violent crimes (full document after the jump). It's anyone guess if he'll be in prison on that day. Evjen escaped from medium-security Bowden Institution in Alberta on Sept. 14. He was caught in Edmonton on Sept. 30 during a routine traffic stop near that city's big shopping mall. Two days later, the parole board reviewed his case and issued the detention order.
The timing is odd, but it may be that the board had this review scheduled months before Evjen scaled two fences at Bowden and scampered off. Evjen had already told the board he wasn't going to bother appearing for a hearing, so they completed a paper review of his case, a now-burgeoning file of foulups on release, escapes, and violence behind bars. Detention hearings are fairly rare (just 266 held in 2007-08). The hearings are reserved for the most dangerous convicts. The National Parole Board holds a detention hearing if Corrections Canada, which manages the cases of imprisoned criminals, recommends detention. This latest decision in Evjen's case has some interesting revelations, including the disclosure that Evjen is trying to cut a deal with prosecutors for outstanding charges from July 2009, when he was on early release from prison and robbed another bank:

You were disguised and in possession of a loaded sawed off shotgun. The offence occurred in the mid afternoon and some 15 people were in the bank. Two of those persons, one [an] on duty plain clothes officer and the other a retired police officer, worked to disarm and apprehend you, at gunpoint. You are facing further charges. Documents indicate you are not denying you committed the robbery, have already appeared in court on two occasions and are 'negotiating' with the Crown regarding what you are prepared to plead to.

The board makes only brief mention of Evjen's September escape:

Your most recent offences, committed while under supervision, and now the recent escape from a medium security institution, indicate you are not interested in making any changes to your criminal mindset and remain prepared to take significant risks.

The document doesn't address the fact that Evjen will earn more time for his escape.

Here's the complete decision by the National Parole Board to detain Evjen until the end of his sentence:



» Previous post on Evjen's escape

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Escapee Evjen becoming 'progressively more violent'

Convict Shawn Evjen (inset) was likely itching to get back to robbing banks and stores, terrorizing clerks and tellers by waving a gun or knife in their faces, so that he could earn some quick cash, enough to feed his addiction to heroin, alcohol and other drugs. It might be the simple explanation for his decision to scale two fences at Bowden Institution, a medium-security prison in Alberta, to escape Sept. 14 – just two months after his early release was yanked and he was thrown back in prison for committing new crimes. His parole records (reproduced after the jump) reveal the depths of Evjen's narcissistic addiction to crime and violence and his refusal to change. He is as frightening as any sexual predator. He seems to enjoy terrorizing his victims and he's indifferent to their suffering.

Evjen refuses to follow any rules when he gets out of prison, so it shouldn't be a surprise that he escaped. He wants to be on the street, stealing and shooting up, and scaring people in the process. He has screwed up while on early release from prison at least four times, according to the parole records acquired by Cancrime, most recently in July 2009, after he was charged with a slew of crimes committed while he was on statutory release (that's automatic freedom, not parole). He was charged with armed robbery, disguise with intent, having a weapon for a dangerous purpose, pointing a firearm, unauthorized possession of a firearm and resisting arrest. The parole board said:

You have once again returned to well established patterns of relapse back into your crime cycle. Your previous pattern of criminal behaviour involves extensive substance abuse, violating the conditions of your release and escaping custody. Your behaviour on this release mirrors your past behaviour indicating that you have not internalized the discipline necessary to manage your addictions and, therefore your risk. In short, you have made no progress at all while in the community.

Keep in mind we're talking about a guy who is now serving a 24 and a half year sentence for armed robbery and other crimes. The sentence began 24 years ago, in 1985. At that time, he was sentenced to seven and a half years behind bars, but his repeated reoffending while he's been free from prison has more than tripled the original term. Evjen is, as some would say, doing life on the instalment plan. His criminal record is now three decades deep, beginning with break ins and drug crimes in 1979. He has becoming progressively more violent. In prison, he has assaulted other convicts and staff.

Below are the written records of National Parole Board decisions in 2007 and 2009 to revoke Evjen's freedom:




When Evjen's early release was yanked two years ago, it was clear that he doesn't care who he hurts when he's on a robbery rampage:

Your criminal offending has been well established over the years and you have not been hesitant to use violence, weapons, and the threat of violence in order to achieve your criminal intent. In addition to your convictions for violent offences, you have been charged with many others that did not result in conviction. It is your most recent offending behaviour that has been the most violent and you have shown little regard for the welfare of others whom you offend against either directly or who may have been present at the scene of the crime and were impacted by your actions.

This was a significant, embarrassing escape for Corrections Canada from a medium-security prison with tall fences, armed guards and video surveillance. As this story notes, it highlights again that Canada's prison service is so strapped for cash that prison managers continue to leave watchtowers that look over the perimeters of prisons empty most of the time to save money (they're still doing it at many medium- and maximum-security federal pens). Corrections doesn't learn from its mistakes, it seems. That practice was a key factor in the escape 10 years ago of bank robber Tyrone Conn from maximum-security Kingston Penitentiary.

» National escape statistics
» Latest escapee from a federal prison in Ontario

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The 'somewhat bizarre' case of Mike Danton

Today the National Parole Board released its full, written record of the parole hearing held Sept. 11, 2009, for imprisoned former pro hockey player Mike Danton, who was jailed for trying to hire a hitman to kill his former agent and mentor. For the full story of the hearing, see this previous post. The board's written record features a deft stroke of understatement in describing the case:

The factual situation is relatively straightforward, although somewhat bizarre.

Here's the five-page record of the hearing and decision to grant Danton full parole:

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Bank robber McBain didn't like being a victim

Poor Kenneth McBain. The serial stick-up bandit and escaped federal convict (inset) who terrorizes bank clerks by waving a loaded .357 handgun in their faces – or firing it into the ceiling – got all choked up describing the time he was a victim of violence, parole records reveal.

McBain's moment of emotion came during a hearing before parole board members in September 2007, after he reported he had been randomly attacked and stabbed. The parole board noted he "became very emotional at today's hearing in describing this assault." He survived the knifing but surprisingly could not identify any of his assailants. Authorities expressed a modicum of mistrust of McBain's account of events:

Although your Case Management Team, as well as the Board, can speculate that you were not simply a victim of a random assault, there is no reliable or persuasive evidence to the contrary. Some of the speculation about the assault arises from the fact that you were stabbed just as you were about to visit a former inmate whom you had met ... He is the person who discovered you in the parking lot of his apartment building and took you to hospital, in your view saving your life. It remains unclear to the Board whether it was entirely fortuitous that this person happened to discover you shortly after the assault.

(page 11 in the documents)

McBain said he'd never been a victim of violence, though the board noted that his criminal record shows that he has been "the perpetrator of violence against others."

McBain is serving a sentence of nearly 16 years for 14 robberies, including 13 with a weapon, and convictions of assault with a weapon, assaulting a peace officer, escape lawful custody and pointing a firearm. In one of McBain's bank holdups, an off-duty police officer in a vehicle tried to stop him. McBain fired on the car, nearly hitting the officer.

Sixteen months ago, McBain's parole was revoked. A kitchen knife disappeared from the community residential facility where he was staying and several days later a nearby gas station was robbed by a man armed with a knife. A knife was later found in McBain's closet at the facility. McBain was not charged with the robbery.

He ended up at minimum-security Frontenac Institution in Kingston, Ontario, a prison with no armed guards or fences. It operates essentially on an honour system. McBain escaped July 6 and remains on the loose (here's my latest newspaper story about McBain).

Below are the official National Parole Board records of five parole decisions in McBain's file, between 2005 and 2008 (page 2 in the upper right corner indicates the start of a new decision):




Related:

» McBain is second Frontenac escapee in a month
» Prison psychologist helps her convict lover escape
» The number of escaped convicts on the books
» Ty Conn's great escape from Kingston Penitentiary

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Wife killer Peter Demeter gives up on freedom

Once-moneyed murderer Peter Demeter (above), a killer who "oozes evil," has given up on freedom. For the fifth consecutive time in the past 10 years, the imprisoned psychopathic senior citizen has told the National Parole Board not to bother holding a hearing at which he could beg for release. A hearing had been scheduled for this month, but Demeter waived his right to plead for freedom. It appears that the former real-estate developer, now 76, has accepted that he'll die behind bars, in part, because he refuses to admit that he hired an assassin who split open his wife's skull on July 18, 1973, in the garage of the couple's upscale Mississauga, Ontario, home.



Thirty-three-year-old Christine Demeter (left), a lithe, athletic Austrian-born model, was alone at home on Wednesday evening, July 18, 1973, for less than two hours. When her husband of slightly less than six years, Peter, returned home from a shopping trip at 9:45 p.m., Christine, wearing an ankle-length, sleeveless plush brown gown, was sprawled on the concrete floor of the garage (photo above), face down, her hands folded beneath her body. Her left foot was bare, a silver slipper a few inches away. A stream of blood, double the width of her tanned body, had flowed from a gaping wound in her head, across the floor. She had been struck at least half a dozen times, perhaps with a tire iron or crowbar, that cleaved her skull, allowing some of her brain to spill out. Blood was spattered on the grey Cadillac parked inside the garage, beside her body.

Seventeen months later, after a sensational trial in London, Ontario, Peter Demeter was convicted of non-capital murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. Demeter did not testify and still maintains his innocence. He had hoped to collect a $1 million life insurance payout on his dead wife. The hired killer who prosecutors contended bashed the 33-year-old mother's skull open was never found, though suspicion fell on several shady characters, including Imre Olejnyik (right), a small time Hungarian crook also known as the Duck. Though police named him, at one time, as the probable killer, he was never brought to trial. He died in Hungary in March 1975.

Demeter was on parole in Peterborough, Ontario, by 1983. Two years later, he was convicted of counselling to commit murder in a plot to have his nephew killed and two life sentences were added to his sentence. In 1988, he amassed two more life sentences (for a total of five), for conspiracy to kidnap and murder the daughter of his lawyer. Demeter was angry that lawyer Toby Belman had frozen some of his stocks because he had not paid her legal bill.

Judge John O'Driscoll sentenced Demeter in the Belman kidnap plot in 1988, leaving no doubt how he felt:

Your evil knows no bounds. It never rests. It never ends ... In my opinion, this man should never, ever, ever be released on parole. Whether or not you are inherently evil, I do not know, but you ooze evil out of every pore and contaminate everyone around you.

Demeter was scheduled to go before the parole board this month, but he waived the hearing, as he did four times previously since 1999, the date of his last hearing. At that hearing, he was denied a chance to leave prison for four hours, in shackles, with two escorts. He was deemed too dangerous. Demeter maintained that he did not arrange his wife's murder in 1974:

As you reiterated, you are hardly likely, after twenty-five years, to admit any involvement in your wife's death as you have consistently maintained your innocence.

[full 1999 parole record]

In 1995, a psychiatrist who assessed Demeter in prison described him as "insightless, manipulative, self-exculpatory and psychopathic." The doctor said Demeter "continues to represent a significant risk to cause trouble to others should be be unsupervised in the community." Two psychiatrists concluded he wouldn't benefit from any programs or treatment. One psychiatrist said Demeter exhibited "narcissistic personality traits, rationalizations and intellectualizations." His credibility was described as "so little."

At a 1996 parole hearing, Demeter flirted with responsibility for his wife's death:

Up until today, you have always claimed innocence with respect to the murder of your wife, and minimized the severity of your other offences. At the beginning of the hearing, when pressed, you accepted 'unqualified full responsibility' for all of your offences. As the hearing progressed however, you kept on alluding to the conspiracy theory and yourself as victim. By the end of the hearing, when asked directly if you arranged the murder of your wife, your answer was 'no.'

[full 1996 parole record]

Today, Demeter (at left) is a crippled old man living in a special housing unit, a small cottage-like building for aged and disabled convicts at medium-security Bath Institution, located just west of Kingston, Ontario. He has survived several bouts of cancer, a stroke and several heart attacks (documented in this confidential transfer request I obtained in 1999). One of his bunkmates, sex offender Ken Shipman, baked him cinnamon buns for his 76th birthday on April 19, prison sources tell me.

More

• The definitive book, By Persons Unknown, by George Jonas and Barbara Amiel
• News video clip about the case
• Demeter whined in 2006, about an order requiring him to submit a DNA sample

The full record of Demeter's 1996 parole hearing:



The full record of Demeter's 1999 parole hearing:



Confidential prison transfer request filed by Demeter in 1999:

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Hidden answers in a mass murder probe?

Sometimes, there are clues to a complicated police investigation between the lines of what police have said. It's worth reading closely the three-page news release (above) investigators in Kingston, Ontario issued on July 23, the day they announced that they had charged a father, mother and son with killing four other family members who were found dead in a submerged car in a canal on June 30, 2009.

Police have said very little about what led them to conclude they were dealing with murder and not a terrible driving accident. But on Page 2 of the release, they offer a clue about what the investigation may have discovered. Investigators note that the Shafia family claimed that 19-year-old Zainab, one of the victims, had a habit of taking the car without permission so she could learn to drive, although she did not have a licence. The family said, very publicly, and repeatedly, that she had likely taken the car in the early morning of June 30, and somehow driven it into the canal, taking her and her three family members to their deaths. Kingston Police say:

Our investigation to date reveals that this particular allegation is false and that, on the night in question, the Nissan was operated by a combination of the three accused persons.

Perhaps what police are really telling us is that the four victims were dead long before the car hit the water. Zainab didn't drive the car that night. Police say that, at varying times, it was being driven by one of the accused. That could be because the victims weren't capable of driving the car because they weren't alive, or at least conscious. Police have not released any information on the autopsies on the victims, including the cause of death in each case.

» Read all of Cancrime's coverage of this story

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A savage killer's parole performance

Ian MacAlpine photo


Every murder is shocking, but some killings sear your soul when you wade through the depravity. The 1986 slaying of Billy MacLeod in Kingston, Ontario, is one of those. In the dark, early morning of May 25, MacLeod, his arms handcuffed behind his back, ran for his life across a newly planted cornfield, desperately hoping to escape the sexual predator who had abducted him. John Lee Jr. (above in 1986) had posed as a police officer and drove MacLeod to a secluded spot north of Kingston. MacLeod did not know Lee, who stabbed him 22 times and left his body in the barren field, snuffing out a young life full of promise. Twenty-three years later, Lee desperately wants out of prison.

MacLeod was a gifted 16-year-old high school athlete, a wrestler and football player who was respected at his school. Lee was a troubled 23-year-old drug addict who delighted in hunting young straight men he could force into gay sex. He had never killed until the night he abducted Billy MacLeod. He did not testify at his trial and has never spoken publicly about the murder. He has refused to acknowledge the killing was sexually motivated, yet the parole records show that authorities fear Lee is a predator who refuses to admit his deviance

The belief that the [murder] was sexually motivated is still held by your Case Management Team (CMT) due to your penchant for having sex with young male inmates and your assertion of having had approximately 700 sexual partners, the majority of whom have been males.

It's still not clear why Lee flew into a murderous frenzy, given the contradictory, self-serving tales he has spun before the National Parole Board, as he pleaded for freedom. In January, he was denied release. Here's the complete record of that decision:



Lee didn't like the board's decision. He appealed to the National Parole Board's appeal division in Ottawa, complaining that keeping him in prison constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, contrary to the Charter of Rights. In the decision below, rendered in June, the appeal division rejected Lee's arguments.



One of the lead police investigators who put Lee away 23 years ago, Larry Willott, told me he hopes Lee never gets out. Here's my account of the case from the Kingston Whig-Standard:

The imprisoned killer who kidnapped and stabbed to death a 16-year-old Kingston boy 23 years ago has failed to win freedom in his first plea for parole.
The appeal division of the National Parole Board has upheld a decision to deny release to John Lee Jr., who is now behind bars in a medium-security prison in British Columbia.
In 1986, Lee savagely murdered Grade 11 student William Patrick MacLeod, who was a star athlete at Regiopolis Notre Dame Catholic high school. Lee was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.
He has been behind bars since his arrest in the spring of 1986.
“I hope he never gets out,” said Larry Willott, the retired OPP officer who was a key member of the investigative team that put Lee behind bars.
Lee, who was 23 at the time of the murder, is 46.
Willott and another officer interrogated Lee for eight hours. He did not confess.
“He wanted to tell us, but he just couldn’t get there,” Willott recalls.
Lee told them: “I know what you guys want to hear but I’m not there yet.”
Lee did not testify at his three-and-a-half day trial and prosecutors never clearly established a motive for the murder. The parole records obtained by the Whig-Standard offer the first public glimpse of Lee’s claims about what drove him to kill.
Some of his assertions are at odds with the conclusions drawn by police and prosecutors and are at odds with the evidence.
The investigation revealed that around 1 a.m. on May 25, 1986, Lee, who cruised Kingston streets hunting boys for sex, pulled alongside MacLeod, a six-foot tall, 180-pound wrestling champ at Regi, who was walking home along Division Street.
MacLeod had been at a party where he may have had one beer.
Lee, who often wore suits, flashed a phoney police badge and told MacLeod he was under arrest. He handcuffed the boy’s hands behind his back, rendering the athletic young man defenceless.
Lee drove MacLeod to a secluded spot north of Kingston and tried to sexually assault him, police believe.
MacLeod must have seen a chance to escape. He bolted and began sprinting across a newly planted cornfield. Lee gave chase.
MacLeod could not outdistance his abductor. With his hands manacled behind his back, he was awkwardly off balance, running in the dark over unfamiliar, uneven terrain.
The teen stumbled in a boggy spot and his left running shoe was wrenched off.
He tumbled onto the dirt.
Lee was on him.
The frenzied predator stabbed MacLeod 22 times – eight times in the back, twice in the chest and 12 times in the face and eyes. One of the thrusts pierced his heart.
MacLeod’s body was found five days later.
Eleven months later, Lee was found guilty.
The knife he used was never found.
Lee was eligible in June last year to seek day parole and unescorted passes from prison.
In prison, he has been troublesome.
“You have a history of manipulative behaviour including: making false and derogatory allegations toward staff members, engaging in hunger strikes, threatening staff and other inmates while incarcerated,” the records note.
Four years ago, he told a staff member: “Why would you put me in the kitchen? Do you want me to stab somebody?”
He appeared before a panel of parole board members in January this year and told them he had learned to deal with his anger, and that he planned to open a food and drink business when he was freed.
He asked for release to a halfway house.
The board noted he is still considered a risk to commit new, violent crimes.
He was denied release.
Lee didn’t like the decision and asked the appeal division of the parole board to reconsider. He claimed his continued imprisonment continues cruel and unusual punishment, contrary to the Charter of Rights.
In a decision last month, the appeal division ruled that Lee was dealt with fairly and the decision to deny parole was reasonable.
At the January parole hearing, Lee offered a series of rationalizations and explanations for the murder, including claims that even the investigating police officers had not heard.
“In your version of this crime, you reported that on the evening of the [murder], you were feeling very angry at your father and the police and decided that you were going to kill someone,” the parole record of his Jan. 26 hearing reveals.
Lee claimed he was physically and emotionally abused by his father. He told parole board members that his father would hog-tie him and whip him with a stick. He said his father sabotaged his development and made it clear he was not “his number one son.”
“I was never taught to deal with anger,” Lee said, according to the records. He also told the board “my parents encouraged me to use violence.” He said he was violent towards his sisters.
Willott said the claims of an abusive father are surprising. He knew Lee’s father as a hard-working and decent businessman who ran a well-known downtown restaurant, the Canton.
Larry Carroll, a retired Kingston Police investigator who also worked on the case, wondered if an abusive father would take desperate measures to keep his son alive behind bars when he was first sent to Millhaven penitentiary.
As a killer of a local boy, Lee would have been reviled by other prisoners.
“Old John was paying protection money to keep him alive inside [prison] and he went out of business shortly afterwards so he must have spent a lot of money,” Carroll said.
Willott said he has talked to parole officials in recent years and offered to travel to British Columbia or to provide information to ensure that Lee stays behind bars.
He didn’t know the parole hearing was being held. No one appeared at the hearing on behalf of MacLeod’s family.
Until Willott read the parole documents, he had never heard the claim that Lee’s father was abusive and that the younger Lee was driven by anger over that abuse.
Lee also told the board that he was feeling suicidal the night of the killing, that he swallowed pills and passed out for a time.
“After waking up, you said that you decided to go for a drive, and it was only then that you noticed a bag in the rear seating area of your vehicle that contained a shiny belt buckle that resembled a police badge, and a pair of handcuffs, which you said you used to arrest non-paying customers at your father’s restaurant,” the document states.
Willott says investigators determined that this wasn’t the first time Lee had impersonated a police officer when hunting sexual partners.
At his trial, jurors heard that Lee sought straight young men for gay sex because he thought he could “turn” them.
Police found two realistic-looking badges and the handcuffs hidden under clothing in a dresser drawer of Lee’s sister. She shared a Thomas Street house with her brother.
The night of the killing, Lee had attended a wedding reception. Willott said videotape obtained by police suggested Lee was extremely high on drugs and was acting strangely.
Lee has admitted to prison authorities that he used LSD, amphetamines, hashish, tranquilizers and marijuana.
“When asked specifically why you selected this victim, you said that you thought that by killing somebody, you would alleviate your homicidal feelings,” the parole records state. “You added, however, that after the murder, you discovered that not only did you still have these ‘homicidal energies,’ but that you also wanted to end your own life.”
Lee denied that the killing was sexually motivated. The parole board noted his “penchant for having sex with young male inmates.”
He claimed to have had 700 sexual partners, mostly male.
The prison staff who manage Lee’s case also believe the murder was sexually motivated.
Lee was asked why his case workers and police hold this view. He said it is because he is homosexual.
“I believe it was sexually motivated right from the get go, especially after the court established his previous numerous attempts to do the same thing,” Willott said.
Carroll scoffed at Lee’s claims that the crime wasn’t sexually motivated.
“I don’t think it had anything to do with the father or anybody else,” Carroll said. “Why else would you handcuff somebody and take them out into a field?”
Lee offered a chilling account of the murder that seemed designed to distance him from suggestions he is a sexual deviant.
He told the board that as soon as he put MacLeod in his jeep, he told the teen he planned to kill him.
“When the victim asked why you selected him, you claimed that you told him he just happened to be the first person you saw,” the records state. “The victim then asked if he could pray.
“You told [him] that he could pray until the end of two songs on the radio. Then you stabbed him numerous times, describing yourself as having been in a frenzied state.”
Willott said investigators believe MacLeod was not stabbed until he ran from the jeep into the cornfield and was caught by Lee.
Lee told the board that he didn’t want to look at his victim because he didn’t want to form a “personal attachment” to him.
Lee’s account of the killing was “devoid of emotion and at times, sounded matter-of-fact,” the parole board noted.
It concluded that his account was not “entirely credible.”
Lee told the parole board that he had a troubled upbringing.
He claimed to have had problems with anger and aggression from the time he was halfway through elementary school. He said he failed every year after Grade 6, but teachers continued to move him on to the next grade.
He was expelled and suspended several times, he said.
“Moreover, you believe that the cause of your violent behaviour was due to your classmates making racial remarks about you,” the record states. “As a child, you claim that you had no close male friends and that you felt closer to females, as you believed that you were female inside.”
Lee had a limited criminal history before the murder, with convictions for possession of a weapon, fraud and uttering a forged document.
He told the board he committed vandalism and shoplifted as a youth.
Willott doesn’t believe Lee is redeemable.
“I don’t think so, I never got that sense,” he said.
An annual football game, the MacLeod Cup, is held between teams from Regiopolis and Holy Cross Catholic Secondary School in Kingston in Billy MacLeod’s memory.
If he were alive, MacLeod would have celebrated his 40th birthday yesterday.

» Whig-Standard court reporter Sue Yanagisawa's wrenching 1987 story of the MacLeod family's agony, on the eve of Lee's murder trial

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A memoir of murder, robbery and redemption lost

Stephen John Sinclair, now 61, has spent nearly his entire adult life behind bars. When he was 17 and involved with a violent gang in Toronto in 1966, he stabbed his former landlady to death. The 50-year-old woman was stabbed five times. Sinclair got life in prison after he was convicted of non-capital murder (the equivalent of today's crime of second-degree murder). Just five years later, in 1971, Sinclair was free from prison on a short-term pass when he bolted and committed a violent robbery in which he tied a woman to a chair and slashed her hands with a butcher knife. So begins the Book of John, a diary of violence, failure and apparently limitless second chances.

Sinclair was tossed back in prison with a stiff 16-year sentence for the 1971 knife attack, the first of his many freedom failures. Below, you'll find a startling 40-page, 14-year true-crime tale of sorts documenting Sinclair's blighted life – a memoir of murder, robbery, and redemption lost.

This isn't really a book, of course. It is a compilation of 10 National Parole Board decisions in Sinclair's case from 1993 to 2007. They are all of the publicly accessible parole records (parole decisions before 1992 are secret, under the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, the law that governs Canadian parole and prisons). I've collected the 10 decisions in one document, for simplicity, beginning with the decision of March 5, 1993, in which Sinclair was granted day parole. (the documents are the basis of my story, published in the Kingston Whig-Standard).

The records paint a remarkable story of a system bent on steering a boy back from the brink, but ultimately failing. In one decision, the parole board describes his record of conditional releases as "horrendous." Some key dates in the tale:

• 1966: Convicted of non-capital murder at age 17, after stabbing former Toronto landlady to death in a killing with “sexual overtones”
• 1971: Commits armed robbery while on a temporary absence; he tied his female victim to a chair and slashed her hands with a butcher knife; sentenced to 16 years in prison
• 1980: parole revoked after stealing a car
• 1983: released on full parole
• 1984: Charged with sexual assault, but charge later dropped
• 1988: parole revoked after stealing a car while unlawfully at large
• 1995: Commits assault and theft while free on parole
• 2001: transferred to minimum-security
• 2004: granted day parole despite failed community releases in 1988 and 1995
• 2005: Engages in bizarre behaviour “bordering on stalking” of girls
• 2006: Parole revoked
• June 25, 2009: Escapes from Pittsburgh Institution; recaptured that day
  

Despite the best efforts of Corrections and parole authorities to monitor and guide Sinclair with strict conditions; to encourage his re-socialization and to accept his occasional failures, he seems irredeemable. He drove the point home this week, with his escape from Pittsburgh Institution, a minimum-security prison in Kingston, Ontario. Placement there was a privilege and a stepping stone to future release. There is no indication why he bolted.

The parole history below is presented in book format (to change viewing format, choose the More dropdown and select View mode). A circled number in the top right corner marks the start of each of the 10 separate parole decisions.



Related
» Killer with no credibility escapes minimum security
» Ty Conn's great escape from Kingston Penitentiary
» The number of escaped convicts on the books

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A prison psychologist's 'love affair with an inmate'

The Correctional Service of Canada still won't say anything publicly about the embarrassing apparent tryst between one of its prison psychologists and a murderer, but police have put it in black and white. Investigators have spelled out in an eyebrow-raising court document - in language befitting a gossip magazine expose - exactly what they think Erin Danto, a psychologist at Frontenac Institution in Kingston, Ontario, was up to with escaped killer Andrew Wood.

Here's a snip from the 'information,' or charge sheet, the document police filed that outlines the charges against Danto:

...on or about the 18th day of June 2009 at Frontenac Institution in the City of Kingston in the said region, being an official Staff Psychologist did commit a Breach of Trust in connection with the duties of her office, by having a love affair with an inmate and assisting that inmate in his Escape from Lawful Custody

(yeah, I added the bold)

My eyes popped when I read it. I've never seen investigators refer to a "love affair" between an inmate and prison staffer in a document like this. The charge is written to suggest that the affair is grounds, in part, for the breach of trust charge, which seems a stretch, since inmate-staff liaisons are a regular occurrence in federal pens. Relationships between convicts and prison staff are strictly forbidden by Corrections, but they're not usually grounds for criminal charges. They're typically handled quietly, internally, with staff transfers, firings or resignations.

Corrections didn't have the chance to hush this one up, since Wood's escape June 13 touched off a mammoth search and public alert, complete with release of his mugshot. Corrections still tried to keep a lid on the embarrassment once Wood was caught with Danto, five days after he bolted, by refusing to acknowledge that Danto works for the federal prison service. Corrections has said only that a "staff member" is accused in the case.

The charge sheet also makes clear why Danto has been charged with obstructing police. Investigators claim she misled and lied to the officers who were probing Wood's escape.

Here's the document, from Danto's court file:



» Click here for all of Cancrime's coverage of the Wood-Danto saga
» Here's the latest on Danto's court case, in the Kingston Whig-Standard

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Is Canada's worst pedophile really a killer?

Canada's worst pedophile, a predator who may have raped and molested thousands of young boys in a three-decade reign of sexual terror, has been denied parole for the sixth time in the past nine years. The National Parole Board said (document after the jump) that although Gary Blair Walker (inset) is now 65 years old, his "risk for sexual re-offence against children continues to be high." The board also offered, for the first time, a chilling commentary about the effect of Walker's crimes.

Walker is a rare beast in Canadian criminal history – one of the few people branded a dangerous offender (fewer than 500 criminals have been declared dangerous offenders in the past 30 years). It means Walker can be held in prison indefinitely, until it's determined he is no longer a threat. That determination is unlikely to come, ever. It is a statistical probability that Walker will die in prison. He admitted to sexually abusing roughly 200 young boys. Psychiatrists testified at his trial that it is likely there were at least 2,000 victims.

This is not a typo of zeroes. Two thousand victims.

Walker's favourite prey were 12- and 13-year-old boys. Consider that every victim is typically, repeatedly abused. Walker may have committed tens of thousands of sex crimes. In a society where murder is considered our most heinous crime, Walker never attracted the public revulsion usually reserved for serial killers. Perhaps it is owed him, given the understated, but wrenching and heartbreaking statement that appears in the June 4 written record of the National Parole Board decision to keep Walker locked up.

It is noted that at least three of your victims committed suicide.

At least three of his victims committed suicide. There could be more. How many more young men spiralled into drug abuse, despair, perhaps poverty and crime, after their childhoods were mangled, their concepts of trust and honesty shattered. Three deaths, by other means, would qualify Walker as a serial killer.

There is no denying that he cut a swath of destruction across Ontario, as he cloaked himself in the guise of protector, helper, mentor. He worked as a police officer, scout leader, hockey coach, judo instructor, school bus driver and school board courier. Each role was a ruse - a malevolent deception that concealed a monster who hunted children.

All of these occupations and interests served to portray you as a concerned citizen and helper which allowed you to fool parents and gain repeated access to their young male children.

The parole board notes that Walker's deviance is "deeply engrained." He seems content to sit in prison, where he has been for 15 years now, knowing that that tender young flesh that he still craves is beyond his reach. He has never sought parole in the past nine years. Each review of his case was automatic. Walker was first arrested in 1992, then freed on bail while awaiting trial. While free, he abused more victims. In 1994, he was declared a dangerous offender, after he had been convicted of roughly 100 sex crimes involving about 50 young boys. Walker grew up in Algonquin, a small community in eastern Ontario about 75 kilometres south of Ottawa. His sex crimes spawned a raft of civil lawsuits, outlined in this detailed story published 10 years ago in the Ottawa Sun.

Walker's parole decisions
The first decision below was issued June 4, 2009, and contains the first-ever reference to the suicides of some of Walker's victims.



Below is one document containing five separate parole board decisions, issued in 2000, 2001, 2003, 2005 and 2007. Walker was denied freedom in each case. When you see "Page 2" in the upper right corner, you are beginning a new decision.



Note: To download any document on Cancrime to your computer, click the "More" button in the bar at the top of the e-doc viewer.

Related:
» Canada's harshest sentence hits a record high
» 'Runaway train' stopped by the court
» How child molesters are made

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Escaped killer had no credibility, parole board said

Despite the fact that the National Parole Board said imprisoned murderer Andrew Wood had no credibility, Corrections Canada put him in a minimum-security prison with no fences and no armed guards. On June 13, Wood, who was serving a life sentence for second-degree murder, escaped from Frontenac Institution, in Kingston, Ontario (details of the escape in a previous post). National Parole Board records (available after the jump) reveal that Wood was denied parole three times because he appeared to be lying to the board about the murder that put him behind bars.

Wood murdered his friend, Robert Ryan Glenn, two decades ago in the Toronto area. Glenn was 21 when Wood shot him to death. Wood was 22 at the time. Glenn's body was found at 8 a.m. in a roadside ditch February 20, 1989. Wood was sentence to life in prison with no chance of parole for 15 years. He was eligible to seek full parole on February 23, 2004, but he has been repeatedly turned down for day parole (release to a halfway house) because his accounts of the killing are self-serving and ever changing.

At his last parole hearing September 13, 2006, Wood told the board that he asked Glenn to meet him that morning because of concern Wood had about his girlfriend:

...you state that she had once been sexually assaulted by the victim, and that you had learned he was being released from jail, and in order to protect her, arranged this meeting with the victim. You then claim that your discussion with him led to an argument; that you both reached for the gun that was in the back seat, and that you shot him in the context of that struggle. The Board did not find your statements to any have credibility.

The parole board noted that Glenn was shot several times:

The Board was struck by your lack of emotion in describing the events of that day. Forensic information indicates that you initially wounded the victim by shooting him in the buttock, arm and then the side. This was a fatal wound as the bullet entered his heart. However, you continued to pursue him after he had tumbled into a ditch, and shot him twice more in the back of the skull.

Wood offered a remarkable explanation for his decision to meet Glenn with a loaded gun in the back seat. He claimed he was a gun collector and figured he and his friend would go target shooting after their meeting.

The parole board rejected that too.

For an explanation of what Corrections Canada says about its decision to send Wood to minimum security, here's my story in the Whig-Standard today. Corrections Canada makes its decisions about prison placement of convicts independently of the National Parole Board.

Below are four decisions by the National Parole Board on Wood's case, collected in one file in reverse chronological order (most recent first). The decisions were made September 13, 2006, March 10, 2006, September 9, 2005, and January 5, 2005. When you see "Page 2" in the upper right corner, you're at the start of a new decision.



Related:
» The number of escaped convicts on the books
» Ty Conn's great escape from Kingston Penitentiary

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Shoeshine killer Kribs - "Significantly psychopathic"

In the three decades since 12-year-old Emanuel Jaques was sexually abused, tortured and murdered in a seedy body rub parlour on Toronto's Yonge Street, the jailed killers have taken only one small step toward freedom. Robert Wayne Kribs (parole record above) and Saul David Betesh are now confined at a medium-security federal prison just west of Kingston, Ontario.
Kribs and Betesh are behind bars at Warkworth Institution near Campbellford, Ontario, after decades spent at maximum-security Kingston Penitentiary. The third man jailed in the killing, Josef Woods, died behind bars in 2003. Betesh has never sought parole in the 32 years since he was convicted of first-degree murder in the 1977 slaying that exposed Toronto's vile underworld of child sex, prostitution and pornography. Both Betesh and Kribs were sentenced to life in prison, with no chance of parole for 25 years. They reached that eligibility in 2002, but only Kribs agreed to meet the parole board. The full text of his only parole hearing, held in October 2002, appears above. The record reveals that Kribs, who turns 62 on June 6, has been a model inmate but that doesn't distract from his frightening sexual deviance.

...the psychiatrist indicates that you suffer from anti-social personality disorder and pedophilia, noting that you present as significantly psychopathic ... you pose a high risk for both sexual and violent re-offending. The psychiatrist concludes that he does not believe your risk to re-offend can be significantly reduced by any treatment which is currently available.

Kribs has spent three decades downplaying or ignoring his role in the sexual torture and murder of Emanuel, who was snatched off the street and taken to a flophouse where Kribs hung out with Betesh and Woods. The parole record documents his denial that he took part in the murder.

Kribs is eligible to seek parole every two years, now that he has passed his 25-year eligibility date. He could request a hearing at any time, because he waived his right to a hearing in 2008, 2006 and 2004. Betesh also could seek a hearing at any time, since he has waived his right to a hearing at every opportunity since 2002.

Related posts:
» Inside the mind of madman killer Josef Woods
» Saul Betesh's child killer whine from behind bars

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Canada's deadliest drunk driver freed from prison

"I don't care if anyone is dead," Scott said, as he was pried from the wreck of the stolen car he had just plowed into another car, killing four people, including three children. He was unlicensed and his blood-alcohol level was double the legal limit.
The deadly crash happened Nov. 22, 1998, near Kingston, Ontario. Scott was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison after he pleaded guilty to four charges of impaired driving causing death and two charges of impaired driving causing bodily harm. Today marks Scott's statutory release date, meaning he's freed from prison to serve the final third of his sentence in the community, under conditions (his parole records appear below). It's the the third time he's been freed on statutory release since the crash. The previous two times he ignored the orders of judges and parole officials and committed new crimes and was sent back to prison, with nearly three more years tacked onto his sentence.

In the 1998 crash, Scott killed four members of one family, 26-year-old Christopher Kilminster, his sons, Christopher, 5, Bradley, 4, and their cousin, Jamie Lee Rattray, 14. Kilminster's wife and two-year-old son were hurt, but survived. Scott suffered only minor injuries.

Sharon Rattray lost three grandchildren and her son-in-law. She's featured prominently in my account of Scott's release that appears in today's Kingston Whig-Standard. The full story appears after this audio clip from the interview with Rattray. She told me that she has tried to move on with her life, but painful memories linger.



From the May 28 Kingston Whig-Standard:

Usually it's police, not grandmothers, who issue warnings about freed convicts who pose a threat in the community.
The release from prison of Kevin John Scott prompted this caution from Sharon Rattray.
"I would hope that people will be aware of who he is and what he does and to be careful," Rattray told theWhig-Standard.
The Harrowsmith woman is intimately and painfully aware of the menace presented by Scott, 42, who is due for statutory release today. It allows him to serve the last third of his penitentiary sentence in the community under supervision.
On a Sunday evening 10 and a half years ago, he killed four members of Rattray's family in a drunk-driving crash that deprived her of three grandchildren and a son-in-law.
The painful memory is always just beneath the surface.
"It comes and goes for sure," she said. "It's something you never forget ... the least little thing can trigger a memory and it's like it just happened yesterday."
Yesterday was Nov. 22, 1998.
Scott was barrelling south on Hwy. 38, driving alone in a stolen black Pontiac Firebird. He was unlicensed and his blood-alcohol level was double the legal limit.
At 8 p. m., Scott veered across the centre line just south of Harrowsmith and collided head on with a northbound car carrying six people.
Police investigators said it was one of the most "explosive" collisions they had ever seen.
Scott told a firefighter prying him from the wreck: "I don't care if anyone is dead."
He had killed four people: Christopher Kilminster, 26, his sons, Christopher, 5, Bradley, 4, and their cousin, Jamie Lee Rattray, 14.
Kilminster's wife and two-year- old son survived.
"Christopher would have been, in March, I think he would have been 16," Rattray said quietly, her mind imagining a life not lived.
"Sixteen, you know, and you just ... "
She struggled for words.
"It's hard to imagine," she said. "Just starting his life at 16, getting to be an adult."
She is remarkably composed and controlled with whatever emotions rage inside her about what Scott did to her family.
"That's something that he has to live with, but, obviously he's not even thinking about that, so..." she said, without completing her thought.
This is Scott's third release from prison since he pleaded guilty to six criminal charges laid after the 1998 crash, including four counts of impaired driving causing death.
He has repeatedly flouted the orders of judges and parole officials when freed. Scott was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison and banned for life from driving.
He was freed on statutory release in August 2004. He was arrested and thrown back in prison in 2006 after a violent assault on his common-law wife.
Scott punched her in the head and banged her head on a sidewalk. She tried to get away. He threw her into a parked truck before grasping her by the neck.
Scott claimed he was trying to prevent his wife from being hurt. Three witnesses contradicted him.
He had 18 months added to his prison sentence.
He was freed on statutory release a second time, in November 2007.
Six months later, Kingston Police caught him behind the wheel, with a driver's licence.
The Ministry of Transportation had issued Scott a new licence because a clerical error made when his birth date was entered into a computer meant the record of his convictions and driving ban weren't revealed.
His defiant attitude was evident in court in June when he told a judge he thought the Transportation Ministry could alter the judge's lifetime driving ban.
"I just thought that was the way it worked," Scott said.
Justice Rommel Masse reimposed the lifetime driving ban.
"I don't care, in future, if you have a hundred driver's licences in your possession," Masse told Scott in court. "You cannot drive."
The judge added another 15 months to Scott's prison sentence but he has again reached the point in his term where he can serve the final third in the community.
He could have been kept behind bars until his sentence expired, if he was considered too dangerous to release.
Corrections Canada can refer dangerous convicts to the National Parole Board for detention hearings.
"They have to make the determination that there's a belief the person could (commit) an offence causing death or serious harm but that's not what happened here," said Carol Sparling, a spokeswoman for the board in Kingston. "There never has been (a referral) in this case."
Because there was no referral, the parole board was powerless to prevent Scott's release. It can only impose conditions.
The board has ordered him not to buy, possess or drink alcohol and he is banned from entering bars, taverns or any other businesses where the primary source of income is the sale of booze.
"Alcohol use is significantly linked to your criminal behaviour," the board wrote, in a document dated May 14.
Scott also is under orders to follow psychiatric and psychological counselling, to take treatment and he's required to tell his parole supervisor about any romantic relationships because of his history of domestic violence.
He's also prohibited from associating with criminals.
"Your criminal record includes offences where you have associated with individuals that have encouraged your criminal activities," the parole board record states.
Sharon Rattray has tried to move on with her life, but Scott's freedom chafes.
"To think that he's carrying on with his life the same as he always has is very distressing, to say the least," she said. "My grandchildren never got a chance to get that far."
A parole record from July 2008, noted that Scott's prognosis for future treatment was "not good," according to a psychologist.
"It bothers me that he's out and that he keeps hurting people," Rattray said.
"I wouldn't want any mother to go through what I've gone through with my daughter and my grandchildren and certainly what my daughter has gone through as a mother, either," she said. "It's one of the most difficult things you could ever do.
"It's really hard to lose children." The parole board did not order Scott
not to drive, noting that a lifetime ban imposed by the court remains in effect.
"It's very easy to drive without your licence and not get caught for a long time, obviously," Rattray said.
All of the parole board-ordered restrictions, including Scott's prohibition against drinking, expire Nov. 30, when his sentence ends.

News coverage of Scott's crimes while on two other releases from prison:
» Scott sentenced to 18 months for violent beating of wife
» Scott earns 15 more months for getting behind the wheel with a new licence

Here is the May 2009 National Parole Board document outlining the conditions imposed on Scott's statutory release:

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Crack addict Christian Franche: 'I'm not a criminal'

Christian Franche is a poster boy for the abject failure of Canada's:
» Drug enforcement strategies,
» Sadly inadequate prison treatment programs and,
» Misguided legislative crackdowns on crime and criminals.
Franche whimpered about his drug addiction, when he appeared in an Ottawa courtroom in January 2003:

A 20-year-old Ottawa man begged for help yesterday before being sentenced to six years in prison for a violent home invasion involving two senior citizens. "I'm not a criminal, I'm just a drug addict," Christian Franche sobbed in court. "I never meant to hurt anybody." The accused pleaded guilty to a slew of charges relating to the Oct. 2, 2002, robbery of Kenneth Healy, 69 and his 76-year-old wife Harriet at their Regina St. home in Lincoln Heights.

(Ottawa Sun, Jan. 28, 2003)

Six years was a stiff sentence for a first-time federal offender and a young man of just 20, the kind of person who the courts would considerable redeemable. Franche had staged three home invasion robberies in Ottawa to get cash to feed his crack cocaine addiction. In the attack described above, he showed the man a gun the victim didn't know was a toy. Later, he menaced the couple with a knife as he paraded them around their house hunting valuables. The sentence was meant to send a strong message of deterrence and it would give Franche time to get treatment while behind bars.

So what happened after he went to prison?

In September 2003, exactly eight months after Franche's teary performance in court, he was caught in the penitentiary with two packages of crack cocaine smuggled in by a female visitor (presumably his girlfriend or wife, though that identity is blacked out in a parole document – all of his parole records appear below). He was convicted of possession and, the drug treatment program he was taking was interruped because he was tossed into segregation. A stiff prison sentence had clearly not scared Franche off from drugs. The parole board wasn't impressed, at a hearing in 2006:

You told the Board today that [the woman] brought the drugs into the institution for you, but that she did so because you had told her that your life would be in jeopardy if she refused. This is indicative to the Board that you are willing to go to any extreme, or to potentially harm any person, in order to satisfy your need for drugs.

Franche eventually completed some substance abuse counselling while behind bars, but the board noted the prison couldn't give him the help he needed.

The final program report notes that you require a high intensity program to address your substance abuse addiction, but due to the lack of such a program, your participation in the Offender Substance Abuse Pre-Release Program was deemed appropriate.

That's bureaucratic doublespeak for, 'We're giving you the stop-gap program that we have available just before the penitentiary gate swings open and we kick you to the street.'

Franche was freed on statutory release (automatic, early release after serving two thirds of the sentence) in March 2007, with the usual orders to behave and particularly to stay off drugs.

His release was revoked and he was thrown back behind bars in January 2008 after he failed to meet a parole officer as scheduled. He also was arrested for assaulting a fellow tenant of the apartment where he lived. Franche was freed on statutory release again in October 2008, which brings us to last week, seven months after his release.

Heavily armed tactical squad officers burst into the home where Franche was living in Kingston, Ontario, and found a knockoff of a deadly AK-47 assault rifle and ammunition. They also found some marijuana, a digital scale, a cellphone and some cash. Franches faces eight weapons-related charges and one charge of possession of stolen property.

So the circle is complete, and Franche hasn't been deterred, or adequately treated and society really isn't any safer, despite the hundreds of thousands of dollars that have been spent catching, prosecuting and jailing this one minor bad guy.

Yet the federal government is moving swiftly with measures to stiffen sentences for gun crimes and drug crimes.

This Government is taking the necessary steps to crack down on crime and to ensure the safety and security of our neighbourhoods and communities.

[full release]

A stiff sentence didn't inhibit Franche the first time round. Tougher sentences for drug crimes won't deter him since he's primarily a drug consumer, yet his violence is borne of drug addiction. And stiffer sentences for gun crimes aren't going to stop someone with a powerful addiction. His record shows that he hasn't hesitated to consider the consequences in the past when his addictive urges drove him to commit violent crimes. The government's own advice, including this report in 2006, found that it isn't possible to draw a link between mandatory minimum sentences and reduced crime rates.

In the U.S., tough drug laws are being rewritten because they've been a failure.

And what happens to Christian Franche?

If he's convicted of new gun charges, he'll likely face a stiff penalty and he'll be shipped back to federal prison – back to the kind of place where they don't have the drug treatment programs he needs and where refusing to smuggle crack for a cellmate might earn you a shank in the back. After a few more years of that, Franche will be thoroughly institutionalized, maybe he'll be angrier and a little more desperate.

Then he'll be released again.

The document below contains five separate decisions by the National Parole Board involving Franche, between 2006 and 2008. When you see "Page 2" in the top right corner, it signals the start of a new decision.

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The double cop killing that shocked the nation

James Hutchison (jumpsuit) and Richard Ambrose (hat) are led into court in Moncton, New Brunswick, on Dec. 16, 1974. All photos courtesy, Moncton Times and Transcript

Thirty-five years ago, Canadians were stunned by a ruthless murder in Moncton. The picturesque east coast city was rocked by the slayings of two city police officers, Cpl. Aurele Bourgeois and Const. Michael O'Leary, who were pushed into shallow graves by a pair of kidnappers, then shot in the head. The killers were condemned to hang, but their sentences were commuted to life in prison when Canada abolished the death penalty in 1976. One of the killers, Richard Ambrose, has been free on parole, but is back behind bars. The other man, James Hutchison, who was fingered by investigators as the mastermind behind the kidnapping and the killings, is behind bars in Ontario but is working his way toward freedom, for the second time. After the jump, the parole records of both killers, the memories of an RCMP officer who caught the murderers, and the exclusive story of Hutchison's pending transfer to a prison with no fences.

A ruthless double cop killer is being prepared for community release by prison authorities, a move that has sparked anger and concern. "I don't think he should ever be released," warned Dale Swansburg, a retired RCMP officer who lives in Moncton, N.B., and who caught the murderer in December 1974. James Hutchison, who is now imprisoned at medium-security Bath Institution, just west of Kingston Ontario, has been approved for transfer to a minimum-security prison. Convicts are moved to minimum-security prisons as a stepping stone to release into the community.

Hutchison escaped in Kingston in November 2000 while on a work-release pass at the Kingston Humane Society. At the time, he was being held at minimum-security Pittsburgh Institution in Kingston. Hutchison and accomplice Richard Ambrose were sentenced to hang after they killed two Moncton police officers on Dec. 13, 1974, in a cold-blooded crime that shocked the country. Hutchison was on parole in New Brunswick at the time of the killings from a sentence for armed robbery. The death sentences were commuted to life in prison when capital punishment was abolished in 1976.

Const. Michael O'Leary and Cpl. Aurele Bourgeois were taken to a wooded area on the outskirts of Moncton. "They were handcuffed to a tree about 20 to 30 feet from where the graves were dug," Swansburg said. "They could hear the graves being dug." The officers likely were taken to the site stuffed in the trunk of a car. Swansburg said Hutchison and Ambrose first tried to dig with snow shovels but the ground was too hard. They drove into Moncton and bought shovels and picks at a Moncton hardware store at 8:15 a.m. on Dec. 13, receipts showed.

Swansburg said he believes, based on his investigation, that there was some sort of scuffle at the tree, where O'Leary was shot in the shoulder. The two officers were forced into the graves where each was shot through the head once. "There was hardly any blood anywhere else," Swansburg said. Hutchison and Ambrose filled in the graves and fled.

Swansburg interviewed Hutchison several times. "At no time before or after the convictions did he ever admit he did [the murders]," he said. The officer believes Hutchison, who is now 81, is still a threat. "I don't know what physical shape he's in, but my [concern] is, there's all kinds of young people that would think he was a hero-type thing," Swansburg said. "What he couldn't do now, he could have somebody else do for him." Transferring Hutchison to a prison with no fences and no armed guards is wrong, said Dean Secord, president of the New Brunswick Police Association, which represents more than 400 officers in the province. "This person should be in a segregation cell for 23 and a half hours a day and let him rot there," Secord said. He said Hutchison is no less dangerous because of his age. "He's got nothing to lose," said Secord, a constable with the Saint John police force. "He hasn't seen freedom and now he's going to have the opportunity to escape. "There's no doubt in my mind that if he escapes and it comes right down to it, he would kill again."

Corrections officials will not discuss Hutchison's case, citing privacy laws. Spokeswoman Stephanie Fullerton said public safety is the number one consideration in all transfer decisions. "The offender must present a low probability of escape and a low risk to the safety of the public in the event of an escape," she said. "The offender must require a low degree of supervision and control within the penitentiary."

Hutchison has been approved for placement at Beaver Creek Institution, near Gravenhurst, about 230 kilometres west of Kingston. Prisoners at Beaver Creek live in rooms in small, residential-style units where they prepare their own meals. Inmates can simply walk away from the prison at any time. Hutchison has been confined for several years at medium-security Bath Institution, following his escape in 2000. He remained at large for three days, prompting police to issue a nationwide alert that he was considered armed and dangerous and should not be approached.

He was recaptured and thrown back into maximum security for a time. Parole records reveal that most of Hutchison's prison term has been marked by continuous escape plots, institutional charges and security concerns.

Swansburg was a member of the RCMP major crime unit that caught Hutchison and Ambrose 35 years ago. O'Leary and Bourgeois were part of a dragnet established after the 14-year-old son of a wealthy restaurateur, Cy Stein, was kidnapped. Stein paid a $15,000 ransom to Hutchison and Ambrose, who returned the boy unharmed. Police were hunting the kidnappers after the exchange. Swansburg said O'Leary and Bourgeois were assigned to check out a suspicious car. "They replied they would check it and they were never heard from again," Swansburg said. "They didn't know they were missing for about two hours."

The next day, Swansburg and a partner were looking for one of Hutchison's known criminal associates when they crossed paths with a local drug dealer, Ricky Ambrose, who was driving his father's car. "We caught up to him and stopped him and he had [about] half the ransom money in his pocket," Swansburg said. Ambrose was carrying rolls of $10 bills. The bank had marked some of the bills Stein used to pay the ransom. The keys to the car the police officers were driving were also found in Ambrose's car.

Two days later, the graves were found in a wooded area about 25 kilometres outside Moncton. By that time, news alerts had been issued that Hutchison was wanted by police.


Const. Michael O'Leary's body is removed on Dec. 15, 1974, from a wooded area about 25 kilometres outside Moncton, New Brunswick.

"He ended up calling our office to give himself up because he thought if it was the Moncton city police found him first, he may not make it," Swansburg said. The killers pleaded not guilty but were convicted during a trial in 1975. They did not testify.

Hutchison has never fully admitted his role in the killings. "There's no question in my mind he was the mastermind behind it," Swansburg said. The officer believes Ambrose pulled the trigger as well as Hutchsion. I don't think Ambrose would have walked out of the woods if he hadn't shot one of [the officers] himself," Swansburg said. "[Hutchison] would have done him in too."

At a parole hearing last year, (all parole records also appear as e-docs at the bottom of this story) Hutchison took responsibility for the abduction and the killings, according to parole records, but his "re-telling of events was vague and lacked details." Hutchison minimized the trauma he caused the young boy and his family. "The Board also notes that you did not seem particularly remorseful for your crimes and the dramatic consequences suffered by your numerous direct and indirect victims," the parole document states. He was denied any form of release at the hearing, held in May. Hutchison asked to be released to a halfway house or to be granted unescorted passes from prison to visit family. "The board must be extremely cautious given your inappropriate behaviour in 2000," board members wrote. The board said Hutchison had lost credibility in the eyes of the Correctional Service and the parole board. (at a hearing in 1997, the board denied any form of release, in part, because Hutchison was considered an "ongoing escape risk.")

Hutchison already had a 30-year criminal history by the time he killed the two Moncton officers, primarily for armed robberies and property crimes. He has confessed that he "always carried a gun." He also has admitted to handcuffing a police officer to a steering wheel in an incident in Ontario before the murders. Investigators believe Hutchison planned to kill the officer but was talked out of it by two accomplices.

Ambrose, who has since changed his named to Bergeron, was paroled from prison in 1999 and was living in Edmonton, Alta. His release was revoked in July 2005 after he violently assaulted his wife and threatened his sister. He was not charged, according to parole records. He also stopped taking medication, against the advice of his psychiatrist. According to parole documents, he became "verbally abusive and threatening" to staff of a community residential facility. He asked to be released again in June last year but the parole board rejected the request. Board members stated he represents "a risk to women you are in relationships with, including those of your current family," according to a record of a parole decision. The document describes Bergeron as "unreceptive" to advice and "combative" with staff managing his case. "In the opinion of your Case Management Team you have done little to prepare for any type of release," the document states.

For the first 18 years of his prison term, he refused to discuss the murders. Bergeron, 60, remains behind bars in Western Canada.

Swansburg believes the killers should have been executed. "When they committed the crime, there was capital punishment," Swansburg said. "It should have been carried out."

(This story also appears today in the Kingston Whig-Standard)

Parole decisions
•May 21, 2008: Hutchison is denied any form of release; parole board members say they must be "extremely cautious" given his escape in 2000



• June 10, 1997: Hutchison denied any form of release, board says he is an "ongoing escape risk"



• June 26, 2008: Ambrose denied any form of release



• 2000 - 2006: Ambrose is granted full parole, but his release is revoked after a violent attack on his wife




• June 3, 1999: Ambrose granted day parole




Related post: Cop killer Laurie Bell ordered back to prison

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Killer Helmuth Buxbaum's legacy haunts family

Twenty five years after Hanna Buxbaum was dragged from her car and shot in the head three times by a masked gunman hired by her wealthy husband Helmuth (inset), the Buxbaum family is still battling in court.

The legal feud is over the final division of cash in a trust fund established for the six children of the London, Ontario couple. One sibling disputed the handling of the money, touching off a nasty and clearly bitter court fight that led to an order against one of the children today [read about that development here].

The children were essentially orphaned more than two decades ago by a murderous father. Helmuth Buxbaum had his wife killed and was sentenced to life in prison two years later though, as you can see in the rambling letters he wrote to me from prison (reproduced below), he repeatedly denied having anything to do with his wife's murder. He signed off on some of his penitentiary correspondence with the child-like alias "I.M Innocent."



Buxbaum was convicted of hiring hitman Gary Foshay to shoot his wife Hanna along a highway near London, Ontario, on July 5, 1984. Buxbaum pulled over at a prearranged spot. Foshay dragged Hanna from the car, threw her into a ditch and fired three shots into her head. Buxbaum's nephew, who was in the car, and was not part of the plot, watched in horror. Foshay got life with no parole for 15 years and has since been paroled. Two years after the murder, Buxbaum was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years, after a sensational 68-day trial that exposed him as a Jekyll and Hyde creature: By day, he was a church-going community leader and successful businessman who built a small empire of nursing homes that was worth millions. By night, he was a sex-crazed cocaine addict with an insatiable appetite for prostitutes.

In prison, Buxbaum was a target of conspiracies and plots, in part, because he still had access to cash. He was injected by fellow convicts at Millhaven penitentiary with battery acid. In Kingston Penitentiary, he was part of a clumsy escape plot that was discovered by prison authorities. He married a woman he met while behind bars, Liza Dikih, but the relationship quickly fizzled when Buxbaum realized she was simply after his money. In a telephone interview with me from Kingston Pen in April 1990, at the time his first since his conviction, he lamented his romantic failure:

I'm in prison and I have to try to survive and rebuild a life eventually and she expects me to buy her diamond rings and diamond bracelets and I just can't see that at all ... I thought it was love.

Buxbaum would have been eligible to seek parole in July 2009. He died November 1, 2007, of lung cancer at age 68 while still behind bars. An inquest called to review his death, mandatory in all deaths in custody, did not produce any recommendations. The inquest jury's report appears below.



If you want to know more about the Buxbaum case, there are two books on it, The Prodigal Husband: The Tragedy of Helmuth and Hannah Buxbaum, by Michael Harris and Conspiracy to Murder: The Helmuth Buxbaum Trial, by Heather Bird.

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Tyrone Conn's escape from Kingston Penitentiary

View Ty Conn Escape in a larger map

A decade ago, Canada's federal prison service was humiliated when a wily bank robber clambered over the 10-metre high stone wall of the country's oldest, seemingly most secure penitentiary, and vanished into the darkness, leaving behind cheering sex killers and pedophiles who were his prison mates. The conditions in which that escape was possible exist again today at some of the country's highest security prisons.

Tyrone Conn (above) was 32 years old, serving a 47-year prison sentence at maximum-security Kingston Penitentiary when he staged a spectacular escape on May 7, 1999. His cunning, patience and ingenuity, coupled with a series of stunning security failures, made the breakout from the Bighouse possible (use the interactive aerial view of Kingston Pen above to understand the escape). Conn was the first prisoner to make it over the wall of Kingston Pen in 41 years. He scampered over the east wall sometime between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m., using a ladder he jury-rigged to greater height and a 42-foot length of canvas strapping and grappling hook he fashioned from a piece of steel rebar. The nearest guard tower, a squat observation post at the southeast corner of the prison, had been empty since 11 p.m. the night before. Had a guard been on duty, he or she likely would have had a clear view of the escape in progress, and, armed with a rifle, would have been equipped to stop it. The tower had been unstaffed on the overnight shift for several years, a victim of management budget cuts, despite the protests of prison staff. After the escape, prison managers reinstated 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week staffing of four perimeter watch towers at Kingston Pen, a prison that holds psychopathic sex killers like Paul Bernardo. Conn's escape also was successful because two inmate accomplices on his cellblock spent the evening of May 6 moving a dummy in and out of his cell bunk before regular head counts. At the time, Conn was hidden in a canvas shop, assembling his escape gear. The dummy wasn't discovered until after 7 a.m., when a search of the prison was ordered after a staff member arriving for work noticed the canvas strapping dangling from the outside of the east wall.

There are eight perimeter observation towers at maximum-security Millhaven Institution, just west of Kingston, Ontario. The Haven holds some of the country's toughest bikers, gang members and contract killers. Just one of the eight towers is staffed on the overnight shift from 11 to 7. Recently, managers at the prison reduced the number of armed security patrols around the perimeter of the prison from two to one. The patrols were conducted by a guard in a truck with an automatic rifle and a handgun, who remains in constant contact with a central command post that monitors video cameras and motion detectors. The cut was made over the protests of prison workers (more on the staffing controversy in my Whig-Standard account of the Conn escape).

At medium-security Collins Bay Institution in Kingston, which also houses bank robbers and murderers, none of the four corner guard towers is staffed on the overnight shift from 11 to 7.

Similar conditions exist at many federal prisons across the country, following the Correctional Service's implementation of a new staffing model April 1, over the objections of front-line prison workers. Staff say security has been sacrificed by penny-pinching bosses.

Ty Conn's breakout was embarrassing for senior Corrections officials, who deserved much of the blame for fostering a culture at Kingston Pen that made the escape possible, front-line staff say. The internal inquiry into Conn's escape and the resulting report (reproduced below in full)documents dozens of security failures at the prison. Many prison workers insist that the final report was a whitewash, meant to protect prison managers and senior Corrections staff. It chronicles the genius of Conn's escape plot. It does not address one lingering question – who helped him? Police who investigated the escape are nearly certain that an accomplice in a car was waiting outside the prison in a nearby neighbourhood to spirit Conn quickly out of Kingston. That person has never been identified.

Conn died, of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot, roughly two weeks after his escape.



Related post: Memories of a KP riot hostage

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Rapist Rene Bourdon's 31-page catalogue of lies

The National Parole Board's file on rapist Rene Bourdon is a growing inventory of lies. Fuelled by pornography, Bourdon uses the Internet to troll for women he can drug and assault. Cancrime introduced him recently, with this post about his latest violation of release conditions. The 31-page record of National Parole Board decisions (available after the jump) catalogues his repeated refusals to follow rules meant to curb his sexual deviancy.

The 31-page document below contains seven different decisions rendered by the parole board involving Bourdon (inset) between November 2005 and April 2009. They are presented in reverse chronological order, with most recent (2009) appearing first. The records reveal the parole board's struggle to restrain a sexual deviant who has resisted treatment and appears determined to hunt new victims, even while he is under the watch of Corrections and parole authorities. Expect to hear more about Bourdon in future.

(Reading the decisions: Click icon in top right for full screen. "Page 2" at the top right corner signals a new decision. Some of the decisions are paper reviews of the case in which the board imposed new rules or changed the terms of the supervision orders imposed on Bourdon.)



Related post: Devious rapist evades supervision

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Cop killer Laurie Bell ordered back to prison

Cop killer Laurie Bell (inset) lied about her 'boy.' Confronted by her parole officer with the allegation that she was secretly having an affair with a federal prison guard she met while behind bars in Edmonton, Bell "vehemently denied any involvement," according to a parole board decision made April 3, 2009 (read the whole decision after the jump). The document explains the decision to throw Bell, who has been free on statutory release for a year, back behind bars. One tidbit of evidence: There were phone numbers for the prison guard in Bell's cellphone listed under 'my boy.'
Bell eventually confessed to the affair. She "admitted to all of the accusations, took responsibility for lying and confirmed [being] involved in a relationship with the individual in question," the National Parole Board document reveals. Bell, 27, is serving a seven-year prison sentence for her role in the 2001 murder of Manitoba Mountie Dennis Strongquill. She was freed from prison March 18, 2008, with strict conditions in place, but in February 2009 parole authorities were tipped about her affair. One of her conditions required her to report all intimate relationships, since her last boyfriend proved to be a crazed cop killer. During an interview with her parole officer and a supervisor, Bell's cellphone rang and the staff heard a male voice ask: 'Why are you going back to jail?' Bell said it was her mother calling. Bell didn't bother to appear before the parole board members. She allowed them to make the decision to cancel her release based on a paper review.


For background and more parole records on Bell, see a previous post.

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What the parole board told serial killer Clifford Olson

Child killer Clifford Olson is eligible to apply at any time for another parole hearing. Yet the publicity seeking, narcissistic psychopath has refused to exercise his legal right to beg for release from prison, as he did in 2006 (record of that hearing appears after the jump). According to the National Parole Board, he waived his right to a hearing June 2008. Although killers serving life sentences are eligible for parole hearings every two years once they pass their eligibility date – 25 years in Olson's case – he can seek another hearing at any time because he voluntarily skipped the hearing in 2008. Another hearing will be scheduled for mid 2010.



Olson has now been locked in a box for more than 27 years, since his arrest in August 1981. He will likely die behind bars. He knows this. Despite his frothing and nearly illiterate rants through the decades, he is cognizant at least of the public revulsion he has attracted and the certainty that he'll never be freed. But through more than a quarter century behind bars this awareness hasn't dulled his ravenous appetite for attention. Parole hearings are a glorious opportunity to perform. Olson has done it just once, July 18, 2006, when he appeared before the board at the prison where he's confined, Ste-Anne-des-Plaines penitentiary north of Montreal (though he also sought to have his parole eligibility reduced in a faint hope hearing in 1997). The parole board denied him release in 2006 (decision above), noting that prison staff who work with him believe his "murderous behaviour would be perpetuated in the event of a release to the community." Experts have poked and prodded the aging beast, who turned 69 on Jan. 1, concluding he is the "quintessential psychopath," a sexual sadist with a narcissistic personality, pedophilia and paraphilia (sexual perversion).

Olson is an infamous figure in Canadian criminal history because of a brief but frenzied nine-month killing spree in which he abducted, tortured, sexually abused and murdered eight girls aged 12 to 18 and three boys aged 10 to 16 in the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley regions of British Columbia. A dropout with a Grade 8 education, Olson had a lengthy criminal record before the murders and was well known to police. His notoriety was inflated by the revelations of police bumbling that allowed him to escape capture for nine months. More shocking was the disclosure that police paid $100,000 into a trust account for Olson's wife in exchange for his confessions about where some of the bodies of his victims had been dumped. That payment touched off a court battle over the money.

While Olson languishes (rots?) behind bars, there has been another deeply disturbing, unresolved question: Did he kill more than 11 victims, as he has often claimed, and does he have knowledge that could solve other murders? [see related post on Olson's claims]. Olson has insisted, for instance, that he can solve the now 31-year-old cold case of Debbie Silverman, a pretty 21-year-old Toronto, Ontario, woman who was abducted and murdered in 1978. In a series of communications roughly two decades ago, Olson told me that police refused to barter with him for the information that would solve the case. Look for more on Olson's Silverman claims in a future post.

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Mountie killer Laurie Bell's revealing parole records

Cop killer Laurie Ann Bell (inset) is an impulsive, drug-addled alcoholic who has contempt for the courts and has shown little remorse or understanding of the impact of her crimes, National Parole Board records reveal (read them after the jump). Now she's at the centre of a prison-sex scandal. She was released from penitentiary in March 2008, after serving two thirds of her 10-year sentence for manslaughter in the death of RCMP officer Dennis Strongquill in 2001. He was a 52-year-old father of six. Bell, 27, is back behind bars, her release suspended, because she's accused of having a secret affair with a male prison guard at the Edmonton Institution for Women, where she had been locked up.

A condition of Bell's release required her to "report all intimate relationships to your parole supervisor." According to the Winnipeg Free Press, Bell hooked up with the guard while behind bars and the relationship continued after her release, though the Corrections Canada staffer denies the hanky panky claims.

The two parole records produced here reflect decisions from January 2008, just before her first release, and January 2009, when her restrictions were eased. They don't mention the alleged prison-guard affair, but the parole board will have to review her suspension shortly and decide whether to put her back behind bars until her sentence expires in 2010. That's when the secret relationship may be documented in a parole board decision. The parole documents show she was far from a model prisoner. She was involved in several violent altercations with other inmates, including a 2005 assault in which she smashed a tin can into the head of a fellow convict. That earned her a new conviction for assault with a weapon.

The records also show that Bell continued to believe she was treated unfairly – that her sentence was too harsh. It's worth recalling her involvement in the crime: She and two men, Danny and Robert Sand, were on a 10-day crime spree across the Prairies in December 2001. They stole seven trucks in and around Edmonton, Alberta and robbed a bank. The trio broke into a farm and stole 10 weapons and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. On December 21, they were pulled over near Russell, Manitoba, in a routine traffic stop by RCMP officers Brian Auger and Strongquill (inset). Robert Sand opened fire on the Mountie vehicle with a sawed-off shotgun. The officers drove off but the trio chased them, ramming the police vehicle. Auger was thrown out but Strongquill was trapped. Sand, in the words of Bell's parole board report, "fired four shotgun blasts into his upper torso." At Bell's trial, witnesses said she shouted "kill him! kill him!" Bell was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 10 years in prison, but was given credit for three years of pre-trial custody. Danny Sand was killed by police when the murderous threesome was cornered at a Saskatchewan motel. Robert Sand was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.

Decision #1, January 30, 2008: Parole board orders Bell to stay at a halfway house after she is released from prison



Decision #2, January 19, 2009: Parole board eases Bell's restrictions, despite her infractions and unrepentant attitude




Want to know more about the murder? There's a book on it, Nowhere to Run, by Mike McIntyre.

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Tammy Marquardt: Child killer or victim?

Tammy Marquardt (above) was the final convicted killer still behind bars because of the tainted medical evidence of Dr. Charles Smith, a disgraced former Ontario pathologist whose errors may have helped imprison a dozen or more innocent people. Marquardt was released March 12, 2009, while she appeals her 1995 conviction for killing her 28-month-old son Kenneth. Marquardt has maintained her innocence since her son's death in October 1993. She said he died accidentally, tangled in his bedding. Smith, who has been discredited at a public inquiry as a bungling egotist who was poorly trained and unsupervised, testified at the trial that Kenneth was either strangled or smothered. The National Parole Board has considered Marquardt's case six times since she was jailed for life in 1995, with no chance of parole for 10 years. All of her parole records, published online here for the first time, appear after the jump.

The documents reveal that Marquardt has maintained her innocence throughout her imprisonment. They also reveal she was a troubled woman battling substance abuse and depression before her child's death. The board refused to release her when they first considered her case in 2004. After she was freed in 2005, she was caught using marijuana, cocaine and alcohol. Her release was suspended four times and she amassed six parole violations. In November 2007, she was ordered back to prison, where she languished until the Ontario Court of Appeal freed her, pending a review of her case, in light of Smith's now discredited testimony. Marquardt hasn't yet been vindicated, though the medical evidence against her was eviscerated. At the Goudge Commission inquiry, called to review Dr. Smith's errors, Dr. Pekka Saukko, a professor of forensic medicine at the University of Turku in Finland, testified about Smith's conclusion that Kenneth was smothered or strangled:

It is illogical and completely against scientific evidence based reasoning to give any cause of death if there's one or several causes that cannot be reasonably ruled out, and in such a case, the death has to be classified accordingly as un-ascertained.

[read all of Saukko's testimony

Saukko also described Smith's testimony at trial as "very confusing," "misleading" and "confusing and illogical."

(Reading the parole records: The document below contains six separate parole decisions, packaged together for simplicity, in chronological order. A new decision begins each time you see "Page 2" in the upper right corner. Click the icon at top right of the e-document to view in full screen.)

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A predator on the loose

Cancrime first introduced pedophile Walter Jacobson (inset) in December 2008 [first post]. Below you'll find a decade of decisions by parole authorities who struggled to control this persistent child predator when the courts failed to brand him a dangerous offender - a decision that could have kept him locked up indefinitely. Jacobson, who preyed on hundreds of children and who amassed dozens of convictions in a 40-year crime spree has been free from prison since 2005. The National Parole Board and the Correctional Service of Canada no longer have any control over him. Jacobson never killed, mutilated or maimed his victims. That's one of the reasons he wasn't locked up forever, despite the monstrous amount of psychological damage he inflicted. You'll discover in the parole documents that Jacobson once admitted that there were victims for which he was never charged or convicted.

These records represent six different parole hearings, beginning in July 1995, when the board noted his "overwhelming history of deviant sexual offending," and ordered him kept in prison as long as possible. Jacobson turns 67 on May 8.

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EXCLUSIVE: Canada's worst rapist won't go free

Canada's worst serial rapist, a 'vile' predator who police believe has assaulted hundreds of women, is not getting out of prison early. The National Parole Board ordered Selva Kumar Subbiah (inset) detained because he is too dangerous to be freed early. The decision was made in December (see the parole document above), when Subbiah was due for automatic release after serving two thirds of his 24-year sentence for beating, drugging and raping more than 30 women. He was convicted in 1992 and 1997 and is serving time for 75 crimes, including 26 sexual assaults. Prison authorities had recommended to the parole board that Subbiah be kept behind bars out of fear he'll rape more women as soon as he's freed.

Police believe there are many more victims, dating to 1980 when Subbiah came to Canada from Malaysia. Sexual assault squad investigators in Toronto interviewed more than 500 women, including many who did not want to press charges. The internal parole board record of Subbiah's case, available exclusively on Cancrime, shows that he has resisted treatment, is indifferent to the psychological and physical damage he has done and minimizes his crimes. In a remarkable display of arrogance, Subbiah told the parole board he presents "zero" risk to reoffend. A judge who sentenced him concluded that "your conduct in the past was so disgusting and so vile that no punishment ascribed by this court would do justice to you." The Crown prosecutor described him as the most "pernicious and persistent" serial rapist in Canadian history. After he was arrested, police found prescription drugs, photos of drugged women who were being stripped and photos of Subbiah having sex with his victims. Officers found a notebook with the names of roughly 400 women who are believed to be victims. Each woman's name was opposite a numerical rating from 1 to 10. Subbiah typically incapacitated his victims by spiking drinks with Halcion, a powerful sedative. He would photograph the helpless prey as he undressed and raped them. Subbiah often seduced women with claims that he was a model talent scout or movie producer.

Subbiah continued to prey on women from behind bars. In 2002, staff at maximum-security Kingston Penitentiary, where he was confined, learned that Subbiah was trying to manipulate women by telephone so that he could get nude photos or phone sex.

Subbiah will be deported to his native Malaysia as soon as he is released from prison in Canada.

News coverage
Subbiah seeks victims from behind bars
Predator jailed for first time in 1992

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Clifford Olson outlives nemesis Gary Rosenfeldt

It seems a cruel turn of fate that the Beast of British Columbia has outlived from behind bars his nemesis. Gary Rosenfeldt (inset), a man heralded as a pioneer of victims' rights in Canada, died this week after a battle with cancer. In 1981, Clifford Olson abducted, raped and murdered Rosenfeldt's 16-year-old stepson, Daryn Johnsrude. Daryn was one of 11 children Olson killed before he was caught and jailed for life in 1982. Olson turned 69 on Jan. 1 and remains behind bars. Rosenfeldt was 67 when he died this week. Olson is likely to die in prison.
He is no doubt gleeful to see an old enemy gone. Rosenfeldt and his wife Sharon launched a national crusade for victims' rights after they were plunged into the criminal justice system because of Olson's deeds. They fought for, and won, greater access to the corrections and parole systems and cast a bright light on a dark and misunderstood process. Olson hated Rosenfeldt's success and despised his public prominence, particularly because Rosenfeldt routinely made public appearances in which he reminded the nation that Olson was a perverted monster who had tortured, sexually abused and horribly murdered his young victims. In 1988, Olson could apparently take it no longer. He made a terrible mistake, writing to Rosenfeldt from his cell at Kingston Penitentiary, wailing that it was an attack on his character to claim that he had sexually molested his victims. The fact was true, although it was not entered as evidence when he pleaded guilty to the 11 murders. Olson wrote to Rosenfeldt, with his typically fractured syntax and misspellings. (This passage is reproduced verbatim from a copy of the letter I obtained 20 years ago.)

I have asked the Alberta Legal Aid society to appoint a lawyer to have criminal proceedings and civil laws suits filed against you personally for false statements and also for trying to expose me to hatred, contemp or ridicule me as a persons that raped and murdered 11 youngsters as you state in all your writings to news papers and others. They inform me that I have a case for Defamatory slander of reputation so smart ass we will see you in court hope you got a lot of extra monies to pay the legal bills.

Olson further fanned the public's revulsion of him, telling Rosenfeldt that his stepson had told Olson, on the day he died, that he hated Rosenfeldt. Citizens were enraged when they learned a psychopathic serial killer was taunting the families of his victims from his prison cell. A prison crackdown on Olson's prison missives was ordered. The warden of Kingston Penitentiary began seizing any outgoing mail from Olson directed at the families of his victims.

The Olson-Rosenfeldt feud was just one of many public spectacles inspired by the serial killer, in part, to feed his ego and keep his name in the public eye. Olson's biggest ploy for exposure has been, and continues to be today, his insistence that he has information that will help solve other murders and catch other killers. Olson claims that he was involved in some of the killings or that he simply has details because he consorted with other murderers. The document above was completed in 1986 by a case management officer at Kingston Penitentiary who had interviewed Olson while he was imprisoned there.

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EXCLUSIVE: Inside the mind of a madman killer

Notorious child killer Josef Woods lived 25 years inside Canadian penitentiaries "in a fantasy-related occult mindset" until his death in 2003. Cancrime gives you this exclusive look inside the mind of the madman with the reproduction of 13 pages of National Parole Board records on Woods, one of three men convicted in 1978 of the sex killing of 12-year-old Toronto shoeshine boy Emanuel Jaques (Saul Betesh and Robert Kribs also were convicted of raping and drowning the young boy in a sink above a seedy Yonge Street body rub parlour in 1977). Woods was convicted of second-degree murder while Betesh and Kribs were convicted of first-degree murder. These documents are the the official record of four hearings at which Woods pleaded for release, in 1995, 1996, 1998 and 2000. He was denied freedom each time. The hearing records appear in chronological order.

[Reading the records: Click the icon in the top right corner to view in full screen. Each one of the four separate hearing records begins when you see "Page 2" in the top right corner.]

Related posts:
Saul Betesh's child killer whine
Robert Kribs fails to win freedom

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Ontario recruits 25,000 smoking police

The Ontario government has deputized 25,000* new smoking police in a bid to rid butts from cars. I'm not making this up. Check out the internal memo and attached documents (above) outlining the scheme that were sent this week to all police chiefs across the province by a senior government official.
The new rules came into effect today (Jan. 21) and bar anyone from smoking in a car if someone under the age of 16 is in the vehicle. Get busted, it's a $125 ticket. Fight the ticket and lose in court, a $250 fine. Tobacco cops, (OK, they're really called public health enforcement officers, who work for public health units) don't get to hunt the nico-lawbreakers on wheels. The job falls only to police officers. The documents above include a 21-page question and answer that looks suspiciously like what government PR flacks call MRLs - media response lines. They're confidential crib notes that allow communications types and politicians to offer pre-formatted, tidy answers to probing questions. The guts of the butt ban are in the Q&A, including:
• Driving a convertible and smoking: still busted
• Parked and smoking: still busted
• Just holding a lit smoke: still busted
• Don't call 911 to rat out a puffer, that's "inappropriate"

You can bet plenty of police officers are sneering at the thought of having to enforce another bit of social engineering disguised as law. Don't expect cartons of charges.

* there are about 25,000 officers across Ontario, according to the latest StatsCan survey

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Saul Betesh's child killer whine

We have an obligation in law to keep people, however odious their crime and their background, alive because there is no other alternative. The life sentence of the court is not a sentence of execution by bad luck or by chance or by negligence.

- Tom Epp, warden of Kingston Penitentiary 1989-91

When Tom Epp gave me that eloquent piece of prison-boss wisdom in 1995, he was talking generally about how Canada's federal prison system deals with the most despicable characters entrusted to its care. He wasn't talking specifically about Saul David Betesh, but his words are perfectly applicable to the sexual sadist, one of Canada's most notorious child killers.

I thought about Betesh, and vile offenders like him, when I came across this story recently about a convict, a cop-killing multiple murderer who won a lawsuit against Corrections Canada because he wasn't given special running shoes [full court decision]. To the average citizen, the story must seem outrageous and impossible to fathom. But prisoners don't lose all of their basic rights when we dispatch them to penitentiary: We send them to prison as punishment, not for punishment. Which means the staff who work in our prisons must find a way to treat civilly some of society's most reprehensible characters. They deserve credit for performing a difficult and virtually thankless task. It's more difficult because some of those "odious" inmates spend a good portion of their free time concocting complaints and whining about their treatment. Child killer Betesh is one of those. Sentenced in 1978 to life in prison for the sexual torture and murder of 12-year-old Toronto shoeshine boy Emmanuel Jaques, Betesh has been a lumbering pest in prison (he has typically tipped the scales at 230 to 240 pounds). He repeatedly launched hunger strikes to press his demands, and often with a flourish of publicity that came from contacting the media directly. In 2002, he mailed me his latest hunger strike manifesto (above, another example of the kind of inmate grumbling that prison staff must endure) that included his demand that he and a same-sex prison partner be transferred together to another penitentiary. Betesh also complained about his treatment at maximum-security Kingston Penitentiary. Betesh wasn't transferred and remains behind bars in Kingston. At his trial more than 30 years ago, a psychiatrist said he was a great danger to society, a man who would likely commit other sexual sadistic acts when released from prison. It's unlikely that any parole board member wants to be accountable for Betesh's release. It is likely he'll die in prison.

Betesh, who is serving a life sentence for first-degree murder, with no chance of parole for 25 years, was eligible to seek full parole on Aug. 1, 2002, but he waived his right to a hearing, perhaps because he knows there's still little chance he's getting out. (I was fortunate that year to land an interview with Bob McLean, a retired Toronto police detective who put Betesh behind bars.) Betesh is entitled to a hearing every two years, but he waived that right again in 2004, 2006 and 2008. Betesh's conviction, along with two other men, Robert Kribs and Josef Woods, set off a sweeping crackdown on Toronto's Yonge Street sin strip of body rub parlours and porn houses. Kribs was denied parole in 2002. Woods died behind bars in 2003.

(In the document above, you can see that Betesh self censored the name of his partner. He actually cut small rectangles out of the paper to remove the name and wrote in the margin, in red pen: "Name not for publication.")

Related: Inside the mind of madman killer Josef Woods

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A pedophile's pedigree

Here's a rare glimpse into a confidential criminal record of a frightening pedophile, Walter Jacobson (pictured). He has been relentless throughout his criminal career in hunting victims and he is persistent; preying on young girls for decades, unlike many predators whose beastly appetite wanes with age. Jacobson shows no signs of stopping. His adult criminal record begins in 1964. The document below, exclusive at Cancrime, inventories his first three decades of criminal exploits. Criminal records are considered highly confidential and are maintained by the RCMP. The record shows place and date of convictions and cases in which charges against him were dropped. I've been tracking Jacobson for more than a decade. Here's the last story I wrote about him at the Kingston Whig-Standard. Check back for more on Jacobson in future.

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Law police prison

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What the prison service conceals from public view

There's a lot going on inside Canada's federal prisons every day – suicide attempts, smuggling, hunger strikes, assaults and sometimes, murder. But you'd have almost no idea how violent and bizarre penitentiary life is, if you simply followed the news releases of the Correctional Service of Canada, the national agency that runs the country's penitentiaries. At this site, where releases are issued covering 13 federal pens in Ontario, there were less than 60 news releases issued by the end of November. Internal prison records obtained by Cancrime show that in the first half of 2008 there were 3,301 incidents in those prisons, including 151 incidents of violence. The document reveals incidents ranging from convicts caught with contraband to attacks on staff.

Legend:
KP: Kingston Penitentiary
MAU: Millhaven Assessment Unit, where new inmates in Ontario are assessed
MI: Millhaven Institution
RTC: Regional Treatment Centre, a psychiatric treatment and assessment centre inside KP
BI: Bath Creek Institution
CBI: Collins Bay Institution
FMI: Fenbrook Institution
GVI: Grand Valley Institution (for women)
JI: Joyceville Institution
WI: Warkworth Institution
PI: Pittsburgh Institution
FI: Frontenac Institution
BCI: Beaver Creek Institution

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Documents: Martin parole records reveal dispute

Most media reports ignored some controversy in the Brenda Martin parole case. She's the Trenton, Ont., woman who spent two years in a Mexican prison.
She was convicted there of money laundering. After a furious public campaign in Canada, she was transferred to a Canadian prison, then quickly paroled. She has maintained she was railroaded in Mexico. Corrections Canada staff who assessed her recommended she be ordered to undergo psychological counselling after release, according to a record of her May 9, 2008, parole decision. The parole board refused to order it. (Copies of parole decision documents are publicly available.)

Martin's case made national headlines. [Canoe, Globe, CBC, CTV, Star , National Post,] Only the Post included Martin's parole decision records in its online coverage and virtually no one flagged the dispute between Corrections and the National Parole Board. NPB decisions are made by patronage appointees, not public servants. Board members hold hearings and interview prisoners and in some cases simply review files. They take advice from Corrections staff who have worked with the inmates. In this case, no one had much chance to work with Martin. She was paroled after just a week at Grand Valley Institution in Kitchener, Ont., a federal prison for women.

It's not unusual for parole board members to reject the advice of Corrections staff, but it chafes when they do and in this case the board members offered scant explanation for rejecting the recommendation. It may be that board members thought zealous Corrections workers were covering their butts with an onerous recommendation in a high-profile case. If that's the case, they didn't say it. If Martin runs afoul of the law again, Corrections staff will be able to say they wanted a tighter leash on her.

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