Rob Tripp's Blog: Cancrime, page 11

30 years later, is serial killer still on the loose?

Police said, five years ago, that they were “tantalizingly close” to solving the murders of two women killed in Toronto decades ago, but the 30th anniversary of those deaths is at hand and the killings remain unsolved. Susan Tice, 45, (inset), a former Calgary resident who had moved to Toronto just before she was slain, and Erin Gilmour, 22, were killed four months apart, by the same perpetrator, police believe. Toronto Police have a video, photos and details of the crimes on their cold case web page. Police used DNA testing to link the murders. The link, and the failure of investigators to close these cases, raises the troubling possibility that a serial killer was never caught and could still be stalking and killing women.

Police concluded that the predator they’re hunting lived in the area of Tice and Gilmour, who were found murdered in their homes a few kilometres apart. The conclusion is consistent with crime-solving work pioneered by Kim Rossmo, a Canadian who developed scientific methods of tracking serial predators, built on the knowledge that they operate in a known geographic area and typically close to home.

It’s rare for a serial sex predator and murderer to stop killing unless he is caught or dies. If the killer of Tice and Gilmour is dead, it’s possible the crimes might still be solved one day, as scientists continue to cross match DNA collected at crime scenes with the genetic fingerprints of criminals. Canada has two such databanks and there are occasional success stories involving major cases, typically when a criminal is linked to the scene of an old, unsolved crime. If the Tice/Gilmour killer is still alive and has been or is convicted in the future of a serious crime, he might be linked to the unsolved murders. Canada has had, for 15 years, legislation that requires criminals convicted of serious crimes to submit a DNA sample.

Here’s a news story that appeared five years ago, in which investigators offered that they were close to solving the Tice/Gilmour murders:

NATIONAL POST
NOVEMBER 18, 2008

Susan Tice had recently separated from her husband in Calgary and bought her own house near Toronto’s Little Italy. On Aug. 17, 1983, the 45-year-old mother of four was found stabbed to death in her upstairs bedroom.

Five months later, 22-year-old Erin Gilmour, the daughter of one of Canada’s wealthiest businessmen, was murdered in her Yorkville apartment a few days before Christmas.

Homicide detectives have determined through DNA evidence that the same man sexually assaulted and killed the two women, and said yesterday that they are “tantalizingly close” to solving the case.

“They never knew each other in life but they knew each other in death,” Detective Sergeant Reg Pitts said yesterday.

Their unsolved murders are among about 70 cases posted on a new interactive Web page that Toronto police’s homicide squad unveiled yesterday morning.

The site, which they say is unprecedented in North America, is a comprehensive bank of current murder investigations and cold cases featuring videos, photos of victims, maps and links. It invites members of the public to submit information in return for a reward of up to $50,000, though unlike Crime Stoppers, the tip is not anonymous. All correspondence will go directly to homicide investigators.

“The traditional means of communication has sometimes been inadequate,” Chief William Blair said.

“A very significant portion of our population, in particular young people in our city, get most of their information on the Web.”

The unit will eventually load all of its unsolved cases, about 300 going back to the sixties, on the Internet.

Det. Sgt. Pitts said he hopes the Web page will stir someone to come forward with new information regarding Ms. Tice and Ms. Gilmour’s case.

“It’s a very quick arrest when we have DNA,” he said, adding that all police need is a name. Police matched the DNA retrieved from the crime scenes in 2000.

“We have a gap of a few kilometres … Our killer probably lived in that area, somewhere in between those two places.”

Ms. Tice was living alone at the time of her death. She had moved to the city on July 9, 1983. A relative went to check on her on Aug. 17 and found her body at 341 Grace St.

Ms. Gilmour, an aspiring fashion designer, lived above Robins Knits, the Hazelton Avenue boutique where she worked.

Her father was David Gilmour, the longtime partner of Peter Munk, the founder and chairman of Barrick Gold Corp.

On the night she died, she finished work at 8:45 p. m. At 9:20 p. m., a friend arrived to pick her up for a date and found her front door ajar.

“The trail has gone cold but they’re not forgotten,” Chief Blair said.

Think you know something that could help police with the Tice/Gilmour investigation? When it comes to homicide probes, no information is insignificant and investigators are always open to receiving new tips. Contact info for the Toronto Police homicide squad is here. If you want to remain anonymous, you can use Crime Stoppers.

Prisons boss ignores law, interferes in Bernardo process

The new political boss of Canada’s prison system appears to have ignored privacy laws, interfered politically in a system governed strictly by the law and intentionally sought to mislead the public. At least, this is what we can infer from the public statement of rookie Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney, issued with lightning speed soon after media across Canada matched the story reported first at Cancrime that serial sex killer Paul Bernardo asked for a transfer to a lower security prison. Blaney was quick to announce that he had been assured by Corrections Canada that there there are “no plans” to move Bernardo to a medium-security penitentiary. Blaney’s terse statement was confirmation that Corrections had refused to provide about Bernardo’s intentions and an indication that the minister stuck his nose in where he had no business.

On July 22, Cancrime was first to report that, after 18 years at maximum-security Kingston Penitentiary, Bernardo was seeking a transfer to a medium-security prison, preferably Bath Institution just west of Kingston, Ontario. On August 1, Sunmedia was first among major national media to match the story. The Toronto Sun’s coverage prompted coverage by the Toronto Star, Globe and Mail and hundreds of other smaller media outlets across the country. The blizzard of publicity prompted Blaney to chime in, with his weasel-word laden statement:

“Paul Bernardo was convicted of heinous and despicable crimes. While I do not control the security classification of individual prisoners, I have received assurances that there are no plans to move this inmate to a medium security institution.”

A prison identification photo of serial killer and rapist Paul Bernardo taken at Kingston Penitentiary

Corrections Canada generally refuses to comment on the security status of prisoners or to confirm their whereabouts, citing privacy laws, so Blaney’s statement appeared to be confirmation, contrary to the law, when none was forthcoming from CSC  that yep, Bernardo is in maximum security and wants a transfer but he’s not getting it – so Blaney’s statement also is confirmation that Bernardo’s transfer request has been turned down, at least for now. Of course, the average citizen might be left with the misperception that Blaney somehow instructed Corrections, and particularly Bernardo’s keepers in Kingston, to reject the killer’s request. But perish the thought. Any such interference by the minster would be highly inappropriate, perhaps even illegal, and that’s where Blaney’s weasel-word qualifier comes in. His statement includes this line – “I do not control the security classification of individual prisoners.” It seems skimpy acknowledgment of a detailed legal regime that governs the security classification of prisoners and their placement in institutions. Corrections Canada must follow the rules, primarily the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, or face legal consequences. There’s legal jurisprudence that ensures Corrections Canada can’t get creative or whimsical with its decisions. Notorious double cop killer James Hutchison won a transfer to minimum security by taking Corrections to court after some flimsy arguments were concocted to keep him in medium security.

More significant perhaps is this decision, rendered in 2005 by the Supreme Court of Canada, which overturned the seemingly capricious decision of Corrections Canada to transfer five lifers from minimum- to medium-security prisons because of a new statistical rating system applied to all lifers in minimums. The top court declared the transfers to higher security “null and void” and said that Corrections “unlawfully deprived the inmates of their residual liberty” because it would not show them the nuts and bolts of the new rating system that had led to their security classification changes. This ruling, and others, are notable because they firmly entrench in law – at the highest level – the principle that prisoners don’t lose all their rights when incarcerated and that they continue to maintain some freedom. Corrections has to live by these principles, with even the most heinous offenders, like Bernardo – or face legal consequences. Which brings us back to the minister, who confesses that he “doesn’t control the security classification” of convicts. What he didn’t say is, even the most reprehensible prisoners may qualify for placement in lower security prisons, if they meet the well-established criteria that govern security classification decisions by Corrections Canada. Corrections can’t fudge those decisions. If they do, as the court records show, convicts can take the system to court and judges have been willing to countermand prison bosses. If Blaney, or anyone else doesn’t like this, they’ll have to rewrite the laws and the regulations governing prisons to ensure that Bernardo, and others like him, stay in maximum security.

Honour killing doc on Banaz Mahmod case online

A full documentary on the honour killing in England of 20-year-old Banaz Mahmod (inset) is now available on YouTube (embedded after jump). The doc recounts the horrifying story of a young woman who foretold her murder at the hands of family, who conspired to kill her to restore family honour. Her father believed she had brought shame on him and the family because she left her violent husband for another man. An independent complaints commission later concluded that police failed Banaz. She had warned authorities that her family was plotting her death. A recording she made before the murder was used to help convict her killers. Banaz was strangled in January 2006. Her body was stuffed into a suitcase and buried. Her father, uncle and two cousins were convicted in the murder and sent to prison.

The critically acclaimed documentary, by Fuuse Films, includes the heartbreaking video recording of Banaz explaining that her life is in danger.

Canada’s worst serial rapist graduates to lower security

A relentless serial rapist who police believe sexually assaulted hundreds of women has been transferred to a lower security prison. Selva Subbiah (inset) has been moved from maximum-security Kingston Penitentiary to medium-security Warkworth Institution, near Campbellford, Ontario, sources tell me. Corrections Canada routinely cites privacy rules in refusing to discuss decisions about where criminals are imprisoned. Subbiah was convicted of beating, drugging and raping more than 30 women, although police investigators believe he attacked at least 500 women, and perhaps as many as 1,000. Police fear many women never knew for certain that they were victims because Subbiah used powerful drugs to render his victims unconscious before he molested and raped them.

It’s unclear how Subbiah managed to secure a spot in a more comfortable and less secure penitentiary since he earned a reputation behind bars as an arrogant manipulator, according to my sources. Subbiah is serving a 24-year sentence after he was convicted of 75 crimes, including 26 sexual assaults committed in the Toronto area. In prison, he attempted to continue to prey on women. In 2002, staff at Kingston Pen learned that Subbiah was trying to manipulate women by telephone so that he could get nude photos or phone sex. His wife was helping him.

Subbiah was due for automatic release in January 2009, but the National Parole Board ordered him kept behind bars because he was considered too dangerous to release. According to a written record of the decision, he was considered “a high risk for sexual and violent recidivism.” Subbiah’s sentence expires in January 2017. He’ll be deported to Malaysia as soon as he is released from a Canadian prison.

I’ve written previously about Subbiah, including this post about the decision in 2009 to keep him locked up, and this post, about an incident in May 2009 in which he was stabbed.

Here’s the decision by the Parole Board in 2009, denying release to Subbiah:

On a mobile device? Click here to read the document.

National crime stats show Kingston has top sex assault rate

There’s a perplexing – perhaps alarming – statistic in new national crime figures released today by Statistics Canada. The numbers show that Kingston, in eastern Ontario, now has the highest sexual assault rate of the 33 biggest Canadian urban centres in StatsCan’s crime survey. The sexual assault rate in Kingston (the number of crimes reported to police, factored for population) skyrocketed by 34 per cent from 2011 to 2012. The rate in Kingston for 2012 is 97. Winnipeg, now the most violent city in Canada overall, based on the latest violent crime severity index, is second to Kingston in sexual assault rate at 91.

The Kingston sex assault rate could be a statistical anomaly, perhaps a reflection of new procedures there that elicit more reports to police by victims – a crucial question since this crime data is based only on incidents reported to police, and sexual assault is one of the most underreported crimes (victimization surveys indicate that roughly one out of every 10 sexual assaults is reported to police, considered another way, 90% of sex assaults do not come to the attention of police, and so they’re not reflected in these police-reported crime surveys, although an analysis I completed three years ago suggests that the number of sexual assault victims who report to police could be as low as 3%).

The new sexual assault rate for Kingston could also reflect the conclusion of one big investigation that led to many charges. It could reflect the activity of one prolific predator who was in the area and whose victims all called police, or, it could reflect the overall increased occurrence of sex crimes in Kingston, although that won’t be known unless someone parses the data closely, with some detailed information from police. In contrast to the rising sex assault figures, homicide in Kingston, a city that typically sees a handful of murders each year, was at zero. That stat helps to keep the city’s violent crime severity index low, since homicide is the most heavily weighted crime in that index. Kingston has one of the lowest violent crime severity indexes among the big urban centres. Winnipeg has the highest violent crime severity index in the new survey.

Keep in mind that these figures for the big urban centres in Canada track census metropolitan areas. The Kingston CMA includes the city and three, small adjoining municipalities. The bulk of the population and the crime in the region is based in the City of Kingston.

This new report also reveals that Canada’s homicide rate hit its lowest level since 1966. There were 543 homicides reported to police in Canada in 2012. Homicide is considered a reliable barometer of crime and violence in society, since it one of the few crimes that is difficult to conceal. Most analysts operate on the assumption that the figures known to police represent the true level of criminal activity. By this measure, Canadian society has steadily grown safer over the past four decades. By contrast, the homicide rate (2011) in the United States, is 4.7 per 100,000, triple Canada’s rate. In 2011, 14,612 people were murdered in the U.S.

The crime severity index is a new tool to measure crime in Canada, introduced by StatsCan in 2009. Here’s an explanation of how it is calculated.

Here is an embedded version of the new national, police-reported crime stat report released today:

On a mobile device? Click here to read the StatsCan report

Killer Peter Stark granted pass to leave prison

Peter Stark, a killer who disposed of the body of his teenage victim in an isolated, makeshift grave, was granted a “compassionate” pass to get out of prison to visit the grave of a dead friend. Stark, who was convicted of murdering 14-year-old Julie Stanton of Pickering, Ontario, was granted an escorted pass by the Parole Board of Canada that allowed him out of penitentiary last year, Cancrime learned. Police and prosecutors believe that Stark abducted, drugged and raped Julie, who was a friend of Stark’s teenage daughter, on April 16, 1990. Julie was last seen getting into a car with Stark on that day and it is believed he also had drugged and raped her a year earlier. Stark maintained his innocence but strong circumstantial evidence led to his conviction on December 1, 1994 for first-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. He was believed to be the first person in Canada convicted of murder in the absence of a body or a crime scene. Julie’s remains were found 35 kilometres north of Pickering on June 27, 1996. Stark, from Stoney Creek, in the Hamilton area, was granted the escorted temporary absence, a short-term get-out-of-prison pass, after a decision in June 2012 by the Parole Board of Canada (read decision after jump), based on a recommendation from the Correctional Service of Canada.

The Parole Board agreed to allow Stark out of prison, on the condition that he be kept shackled and under escort of correctional officers at all times, according to the written record of the board’s decision, dated June 5, 2012. The record does not indicate whether Stark took advantage of the pass. According to the document, Stark met “legislative criteria” for the pass, a “compassionate escorted temporary absence” because the person died in January 2012 but Stark did not learn about it until after the funeral had been held. The board wrote:

In terms of the relevant circumstances for your proposed ETA, the board is satisified that your overall risk would be manageable as there is a structured release plan in place. You will be within sights and sound of security officers at all times and you will be constantly supervised while on the ETA. Further, you will be in full restraint equipment. The ETA will be for approximately seven hours duration.

The identity of the person whose grave was to be visited was censored from the document, but the individual was identified as “a community support who provided you with family supports.”

The document provides the first insight into Stark’s time behind bars, since his conviction in 1994. The record reveals that he is no longer being held in maximum security, though the security level of the prison in Ontario where he is now held was redacted from the document. The Parole Board noted that “there are no security concerns noted in your file and that you have not come to the attention of the Security Intelligence Officer (SIO) since 1997.” The document does not explain why Stark came under the scrutiny of the prison’s SIO in ‘97. The document also appears to disclose publicly for the first time that Stark was involved in other sex crimes, before he killed Julie. The parole board document states:

Your file also indicates a history of involvement in similar types of offences where you drugged a young female and sexually assaulted her as well as stabbing a female hitchhiker and throwing her from your car.

The parole document indicates that Stark is now considered a “low-moderate risk for re-offending.”

I spoke to Stark in October 1996, by telephone from Kingston Penitentiary, after Julie’s body had been found. He insisted that DNA testing of samples from her remains would exonerate him. “I’m definitely innocent,” he said.

Stark told me that a jailhouse informant who testified against him, Gerald Udall, lied.

“He made up a phoney statement,” said Stark, who did not testify at his trial.

Forensic examination of Julie’s remains, which were in an advanced stage of decomposition, did not provide any conclusive evidence that she had been sexually assaulted or drugged. (For a detailed description of the state of the remains and forensic testing, read the decision released in 2000 by the Court of Appeal for Ontario, rejecting Stark’s appeal.) Stark is eligible to seek full parole in February 2017. He will be eligible in 2014 to apply for day parole and unescorted passes from prison.

Here is the decision of the Parole Board issued in 2012, granting Stark an escorted temporary absence pass from prison:

On a mobile device? Click here to read document.

Bernardo says he deserves transfer out of max security

Sex slayer and serial rapist Paul Bernardo believes he deserves to live in the more comfortable and less restrictive confines of a medium-security prison. After 18 lonely years in the mind-numbing isolation of a super-secure segregation unit inside maximum-security Kingston Penitentiary, Bernardo has asked for a transfer to a lower-security prison, sources tell me. Soon, he will have to be moved to a new home because Kingston Pen is slated to close. Bernardo covets a spot at medium-security Bath Institution, a complex of cottage-style dormitories on a sprawling 640-acre lakefront property  just west of Kingston, according to my sources. Bernardo wants to stay in Ontario to remain close to family. He does not want to be shipped to a penitentiary in another province. Bernardo has been visited in prison by his mother, according to sources.

A prison identification photo of serial killer and rapist Paul Bernardo taken at Kingston Penitentiary

Bath, adjacent to maximum-security Millhaven Pen, opened in 1972 as a minimum-security facility without any fences or armed guards. It was converted to medium security in 1994 and, in the first six months of its new incarnation, it saw seven escapes. Although it may seem highly unlikely that a criminal as notorious as Bernardo would be considered for a transfer to lower security, the idea isn’t out of the question and there may no longer be any legal impediment to the transfer. Sources tell me that Corrections officials recently moved Bernardo to a different segregation unit within Kingston Pen, an attempt to appease him after years of agitation over the conditions in which he’s confined. Bernardo has been locked in a small cell, about five feet wide by 10 feet long, 23 hours a day. He can watch television and read and he can leave the cell, alone, if he chooses, for an hour of exercise daily. If Bernardo is assessed as a lower-security inmate, there would be no barrier to his transfer. As a matter of policy, Corrections Canada places convicted killers in maximum-security prisons for the first two years of their sentences, but, after that, if they qualify, they can be moved to lower security. Many killers graduate to lower security prisons, including minimum-security complexes that do not have armed guards, fences or walls.

Bernardo was moved out of the lower H segregation cellblock where he has been housed since he arrived at Kingston Pen in November 1995 to lower A, another segregation unit, sources tell me. (Contrary to other media reports, Bernardo was not transferred to a prison in Quebec, my sources say.) Although lower A is also a cellblock where inmates are isolated from the general population, there’s more movement and the opportunity for more freedom. Bernardo has been locked in a cell under the law that governs administrative segregation. It is segregation for the purpose of protecting Bernardo. When Bernardo arrived at Kingston in ‘95, a confidential internal database maintained by Corrections Canada noted that his placement was because he was considered a “high risk sex offender.”  But administrative segregation is not punitive and Corrections bosses are mindful of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, the law governing the operations of prisons. It requires that a convict “is to be released from administrative segregation at the earliest appropriate time.” It’s unclear at this point how Bernardo is classified. All prisoners are continually re-evaluated for the risk they pose to attempt to escape, the risk they would pose to the public if they escaped and the level of supervision and control they require in prison. These are factors considered when Corrections decides whether to classify a convict as maximum, medium, or minimum security. Every convict also is rated for “institutional adjustment,” a fairly subjective assessment of how he has adapted to prison life and how he is coping with his sentence. I’m told that senior staff at Kingston Pen are keeping very careful tabs on Bernardo since his transfer to the new segregation unit, for any signs that he faces a threat or that his presence on the unit is disruptive. Because of Bernardo’s odious crimes, there’s still public bloodlust for him, but no senior Corrections Canada official wants to see Bernardo injured or killed during his or her watch. That would prompt a major investigation, since the law requires Corrections to carry out the sentence of the courts – life in prison for Bernardo – and not to permit that to be supplanted by a convict-imposed death sentence.

Bernardo, in his cell at Kingston Pen

Bernardo, who is now 48, could fit right in, demographically speaking, at Bath Institution, which has a reputation as a home for geriatric killers. More than half the prison’s inmates are aged 50 or older. Notorious double cop killer James Hutchison (now deceased) completed some of his life sentence at Bath. Peter Demeter, a wealthy Toronto developer who contracted the brutal murder of his wife (a judge said Demeter “oozes evil”), has lived a long stretch at Bath. Double killer Gregory Krick (one of his victims was his nephew), spent several years at Bath.

Perhaps remarkably, Bernardo will be eligible in just 19 months to seek two forms of conditional release from prison: day parole (which typically involves release to a halfway house) and unescorted temporary absences – passes that permit an inmate to leave prison for short stretches (72 hours, for instance) without supervision. Bernardo is eligible to apply for these forms of release on February 17, 2015, three years before he is is eligible to seek full parole. Bernardo has these opportunities because every criminal sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years is eligible to seek day parole and UTAs after serving 22 years. Bernardo is serving two concurrent life-25 sentences for the murders of Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French. He also was declared a dangerous offender, meaning he can be kept locked up forever, if he continues to be considered a danger to society. The Parole Board will consider his dangerous offender designation in any release decisions. Chances are good that Bernardo will never be granted any form of conditional release. Statistically speaking, most dangerous offenders die behind bars. But none of this changes the fact that he will be eligible to seek release and the Parole Board will be required to conduct a hearing, if Bernardo demands one.

If a hearing is convened, it will afford Bernardo the opportunity to do something that he has steadfastly refused for nearly two decades – to admit his guilt in the murders of Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy. Parole board panels typically require an unconditional admission of guilt and acceptance of responsibility from criminals pleading for release. Panel members will often interrogate a criminal at length about his crime/s, particularly if there have been past denials or attempts to rationalize or minimize the conduct.

Bernardo has continued to shout to anyone who would listen that he is not guilty of those two heinous murders of which he was convicted in September 1995. Bernardo insists that his accomplice/victim, his wife Karla Homolka, was the true killer. She cut a deal with prosecutors that was later condemned, in which she agreed to testify against her husband in exchange for a 12-year prison sentence for her role in the deaths of Kristen and Leslie and her role in the death of her sister Tammy, who she drugged and offer to her husband as a sex toy. Tammy died while being raped by Bernardo and Homolka after choking on her own vomit. Homolka is now free and is not subject to any supervision. Her sentence expired in 2005. In 2012, journalist Paula Todd wrote a short e-book, detailing a meeting with Homolka in Guadeloupe, a small French island in the Caribbean (author Stephen Williams wrote that Todd’s e-book was “rife with errors.”)

From left, Tammy Homolka, Leslie Mahaffy, Kristen French

Bernardo appealed his conviction on the murder charges. The Court of Appeal for Ontario rejected his appeal, and the Supreme Court of Canada refused to entertain an appeal. The Court of Appeal for Ontario noted that Bernardo admitted only, with respect to Kristen and Leslie, “that he kidnapped these two teenage girls, and then confined them in his house while he brutally sexually assaulted and humiliated them.” He insisted that Homolka alone was the murderer and he was guilty only of manslaughter. Homolka testified at Bernardo’s trial that he strangled the victims with a cord. Bernardo also has admitted to stalking and raping women, before the murders. He is known to have attacked at least 14 women between 1987 and 1990 in Scarborough and perhaps many more in other areas. Since his imprisonment, Bernardo has admitted to additional sex attacks and he remains a suspect in other murders, including the unsolved slaying of Elizabeth Bain, a University of Toronto student who disappeared in 1990. Her boyfriend, Robert Baltovich was convicted of the murder but cleared after a second trial. Bain’s body has never been found and in an interview with police inside Kingston Pen in 2007, Bernardo denied that he killed Bain (transcript of the police interview). In another interview with police, in 2006, Bernardo repeated his claim that Homolka killed Leslie and Kristen and he insisted he was not psychopathic and he “cared about people,” although there is ample evidence that he is a sexual sadist, an offender who derives pleasure from inflicting pain.

In her testimony during Bernardo’s trial, Homolka denied that she played a bigger role in the abduction, rapes and murders.

“I have never minimized my role and I never will minimize my role,” Homolka said, in response to a question from John Rosen, Bernardo’s lawyer.

Not everyone believes her. In his book, Karla: A Pact with the Devil, Williams, writes that Homolka was “equally, if not more, responsible for the crimes she and her partner committed.” Williams notes:

No one died until Paul Bernardo moved in with Karla Homolka. She could have chosen not to do what she did to her sister. She did what she did with the full knowledge that her actions put her sister’s life at risk. She had many opportunities to save her sister, Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French.

The revelation that Bernardo has asked for a transfer to lower security and that he will soon qualify to seek parole will undoubtedly arouse demands for jungle justice. ‘Turn him loose in the general prison population,’ is a familiar refrain (one applied equally to others before, like Clifford Olson). There is a constituency – those to whom the Harper Conservatives have pandered – who believe everyone convicted of any crime more serious than shoplifting or bike theft should be executed or, at least, confined in a dungeon. Bernardo is a difficult case. Our civilized society stopped executing murderers 50 years ago, choosing instead to confine them, as punishment, for long stretches – although many killers are eventually paroled. Keeping these seemingly untreatable and iredeemable monsters alive behind bars leads necessarily to a discussion of what duty we owe these imprisoned wretches to provide reasonable conditions of confinement? There can be no argument that the Bernardo-like offenders should be subject to cruelty, beyond confinement, as a means to deter other would-be killers. Decades of study and statistics reveal no apparent correlation between harsh punishment and fewer killings. The rate of homicide in Canada has declined since the mid-1970s, when Canada abolished the death penalty.

The idea of putting a sexual predator in a prison less secure than Kingston Penitentiary is not without precedent. Saul Betesh, the principal figure in the 1997 rape, torture and murder of Emanuel Jaques in Toronto, long ago graduated to medium security. Sadistic sex killer James Giff is in minimum security. Child slayer John Carlos Terceira was in medium security, at last check. There are many others. Bernardo may have a good case for a transfer.

Here’s the Globe and Mail story, published in 2008, that detailed Bernardo’s interview with police at Kingston Pen on April 16, 2006:

By Kirk Makin

Justice Reporter

In his first interview since being imprisoned for life in 1995, serial killer Paul Bernardo told police that sexual “performance anxiety” was the driving force that led him to leave a trail of dead girls and sexual violence across Southern Ontario.

“That’s what I had back then, so I used sex as a vice,” Mr. Bernardo said in the April 16, 2006, police interview. “Now, I work out. I wake up every day knowing I’m not psychopathic. I care about people. I cried during 9/11. I cried during Columbine.”

In an interview transcript filed in the Ontario Court of Appeal, Mr. Bernardo told two Toronto police investigators that he had spent endless hours trying to come to grips with deep-seated insecurities – involving his “baby chest,” his having been a nerdy schoolboy, and his penchant for forcing rape victims to disparage their boyfriends’ sexual prowess.

“It’s all power and control, because you’re so insecure in yourself,” he said. “I was the type of guy who would freeze at baseball plays. I don’t want to swing because I know I’m gonna miss. I remember the first time I went waiting at Mother’s Pizza, I was so scared to walk up to the table.”

A transcript of the two-hour interview was filed in connection with an application by London, Ont., man Anthony Hanemaayer, who is asking to be exonerated in a sex attack that Mr. Bernardo recently confessed to having perpetrated.

Mr. Bernardo, known as the Scarborough rapist, was convicted of killing schoolgirls Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy, and also of almost 20 sexual assaults.

The interview took place at Kingston Penitentiary, where he is in a maximum-security, solitary-confinement unit and prohibited from having contact with the news media.

“I’m the worst piece of crap on the planet, yet I get up every day,” Mr. Bernardo told Detective Brad Hoover and Detective-Constable Darlene Coulis. “I work out. I don’t sit there crying in my cell. And you know, I don’t feel threatened because someone called me an idiot, you know, where I have to attack. … Everyone treats me that way. I have no friends. I have nobody. But I handle it.”

Clearly intent on convincing the officers that he was rehabilitated, Mr. Bernardo said that he had not used drugs or alcohol in prison. Nor, he said, had he attempted to take up offers of sexual services he had had from women since arriving in prison.

“I get letters,” he said. “I get lots of letters. No, thanks. It’s egocentric for someone to come in. I’m not a sex predator … I don’t engage in deviancy at all. I’ve overcome all this stuff. I don’t have a girlfriend. I don’t have relations; don’t want one.”

Correctional Services Canada officials said yesterday that privacy rules prevent them from revealing whether Mr. Bernardo can have conjugal visits. However, he implied to the investigators that the choice was his. At one point, he said that “bringing a woman to orgasm is what gives me pleasure – which is the case now.

“Am I going to bring somebody here, you know, to this horrible situation? Bring her in as Paul Bernardo’s girlfriend and subject her to that just so I can have my sex or relationship? I’m not gonna to do it – not until I’m out of prison.”

Mr. Bernardo also denied harbouring antipathy toward women: “I loved women and obviously loved sex because of the vice at the time. But there was never any hatred against women. They were my best friends, uh, mostly.”

Speaking in a rambling, stream-of-consciousness manner, he insisted he would be a solid prospect for parole when he becomes eligible in 2010 for a 15-year review under the Criminal Code’s so-called faint-hope clause.

He said his newfound insight into his character flaws could have saved him from being plunged into “a horrible, horrible existence.

“Every day, it’s ‘Bernardo – schoolgirl killer,’ ” he said. “It’s horrible to be pounded with that all the time. I got it yesterday, today, all the time. And it’s people that I could bully because I’m bigger physically and a better fighter. But I don’t engage in that. I walk away, disgraced and humiliated, but I can handle it.

“I’m losing the battles to win the war,” he told the police officers. “The war is not a war against you guys and a war against the Attorney-General, so that I can go and rape again. The war is the war of life – my mistakes in life.”

Mr. Bernardo also appeared to acknowledge for the first time since his murder trial that he was present when Kristen and Leslie were killed, although he continued to assert that his wife at the time, Karla Homolka, actually strangled them.

At another point in the interview, he insisted that police and psychiatrists were wrong to believe that his crimes had progressed steadily from minor, less violent attacks to sadistic murders.

A gruesome attack was sometimes followed by a less violent one, he said. “If you look back at some of the first ones – in ‘88, the girl got her arm broken. A lot afterwards didn’t. … You have ups and down – depending on the more they fought, the more I fought.”

He also disputed police assertions that he had hung on to his rape victims’ personal items and identification cards as trophies.

Mr. Bernardo said he “took stuff from the victims as kind of a deterrence thing. Okay, like, ‘I know where you live, so don’t say anything.’

“It does a disservice, because if you really want to profile me correctly, it’s not good to say that. … It misrepresents who I was, and what I done those things for.”

Ruling provides rare detail on prison “muscling”

Muscling in prisons and jails is pernicious, prevalent, and for square johns – folks who live law-abiding, straight lives – a confusing concept. Muscling is akin, in many ways, to bullying, except that in prison, it is a means to secure drugs, weapons, sex, information or just about anything that one convict, or a group of convicts, wants. It’s rare to see a muscling incident examined publicly, with names attached. The heavies – gang bosses, drug lords and psychos who are most active behind bars as musclers – don’t want their corrupt schemes exposed because that threatens to disrupt supply chains. Muscling is the spigot through which contraband flows into prisons. A recent decision of the Federal Court offers rare, detailed insight into a fairly common muscling scam in which the family member of a prisoner is under pressure to smuggle goods into a penitentiary.

The events took place at Fenbrook, a medium-security prison in Ontario, near Gravenhurst. Although it’s uncertain, based on the court record, whether the muscling actually took place, the record explains that one convict complained that he was muscled. In short, the prisoner told authorities that he was stabbed because he refused to submit to the demands of several convicts who weres muscling him. In the scenario explained by the purported vicitm, one participant in the muscling scheme was paroled prisoner Imad Hermiz. Hermiz stabbed a man to death in the Toronto area in 2005 and was later convicted of manslaughter. He spent three years behind bars before he was released.

Here’s the detailed description, contained in the Federal Court decision, of the alleged muscling incident involving Hermiz:

4.         Mr. Hermiz was sentenced on March 7, 2007 for a conviction of manslaughter for stabbing a man at a hotel party. In provincial custody he incurred charges or convictions related to drugs.

5.         On October 7, 2007, Mr. Hermiz was transferred to Fenbrook Medium Institution (FMI). On December 20, 2007, Mr. Hermiz was moved to a living area (a “range”) of up to 9 inmates, one of whom was Jason Bolan.

6.         On May 20, 2008, Mr. Hermiz was released on a conditional release known as “day parole” to St. Leonard’s Peel Community Residential Facility (CRF) in Toronto and placed under the supervision of community parole officer Hamza Al-Baghdadi (“PO Al-Baghdadi”).

7.         On June 19, 2008, Jason Bolan met with FMI Security Intelligence Officer Holly Goldthorp (SIO Goldthorp) to discuss his wife visiting the institution on June 22, 2008. Mr. Bolan advised that he had been stabbed the previous day because he refused to assist in bringing drugs to FMI.

8.         Mr. Bolan told SIO Goldthorp that Imad Hermiz had appeared on his wife’s doorstep with a package for her to deliver to FMI. Mrs. Bolan had described the individual who appeared on her doorstep and Mr. Bolan recognised Mr. Hermiz from the description. Mr. Bolan also advised that Mr. Hermiz had been close to the individuals who had just assaulted him in relation to the same plot to import drugs.

9.         SIO Goldthorp investigated the allegations and found that Mr. Bolan and Mr. Hermiz had lived on the same range together for six months immediately before Mr. Hermiz’s release on parole. She discovered no basis for an ulterior motive, observed that Mr. Bolan appeared legitimately concerned for his wife’s safety and that he was assuming a significant risk to his life by publicly informing on a fellow offender.

10.      SIO Goldthorp called PO Al-Baghdadi the same day to advise of the information concerning Mr. Hermiz. Shortly thereafter she sent a report of the information she had received to PO Al‑Baghdadi.

11.      PO Al-Baghdadi telephoned Mrs. Bolan to discuss the allegations. Mrs. Bolan sounded nervous, uncomfortable, and unwilling to cooperate with the investigation into the incident. She indicated that it was dark and the three individuals who attended at her house were wearing heavy coats. She also indicated that the visit took place three months prior, contrary to the information provided by her husband. PO Al-Baghdadi found that Mrs. Bolan was being vague and that her behaviour was consistent with a witness recanting an earlier statement due to a fear of retaliation.

12.      PO Al-Baghdadi held a case conference with his supervisor, parole officer supervisor Phil Schiller (“POS Schiller”) to determine whether this information created an increased risk to the community. Upon reviewing the plaintiff’s profile and the information received, a warrant of suspension of parole and apprehension was issued.

13.      On June 23, 2008, PO Al-Baghdadi held a post-suspension interview with Mr. Hermiz. PO Al-Baghdadi found that the plaintiff was not credible. Furthermore, Mr. Hermiz admitted to being involved with drugs at FMI.

14.      Later that day, PO Al-Baghdadi and POS Schiller held a second case conference to consider cancelling the suspension of Mr. Hermiz’s day parole. They decided to wait for further information which might require a second post-suspension interview. No new information was received and a transfer warrant moving Mr. Hermiz to Kingston Penitentiary Temporary Detention Unit was issued on July 4, 2008.

15.      PO Al-Baghdadi requested that institutional parole officer Jennifer Leplant interview Mr. Hermiz at Kingston Penitentiary Temporary Detention Unit regarding his suspension. At that time Mr. Hermiz denied being involved with drugs at FMI, contrary to his statement to PO Al-Baghdadi.

16.      A recommendation to revoke Mr. Hermiz’s day parole was prepared for the PBC (Parole Board of Canada) on July 11, 2008. An addendum to this recommendation was prepared on July 15, 2008. On September 9, 2008, the PBC cancelled the suspension of Mr. Hermiz’s day parole.

Hermiz pleaded guilty in 2007 to the killing that put him in prison.

By Bob Mitchell

Toronto Star Staff Reporter

Published on Wed Feb 28, 2007

A Brampton man today made a surprise guilty plea, admitting that he killed another man during a fight in a motel room nearly two years ago.

Imad Hermiz, 20, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the stabbing death of Carlos Grundy, 21, of Toronto on March 25, 2005.

Justice Casey Hill accepted the man’s guilty plea and remanded him until March 7 for sentencing. He has been in custody since his arrest.

“Guilty, your honour,” Hermiz said when asked by Hill how he pled to causing the unlawful death of Grundy.

Hermiz later appeared in another Brampton courtroom where Justice Terry O’Connor informed a jury that their services were no longer needed.

The convicted man pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder when his jury trial began about two weeks ago.

Two other men initially accused of second-degree murder, Kallister Carrington, 21, and Barnett Lugemwa, 21, previously had their charges withdrawn.

In an odd coincidence, Grundy’s older brother Orlando, then 22, was murdered six weeks earlier in Toronto when he was hit by gunfire as he tried to shield Carlos and another brother from bullets in a Kipling Ave. apartment.

There was no connection to either slayings, police said.

In an agreed statement of facts read into court by crown prosecutor Alex Cornelius, Hermiz admitted he stabbed Grundy in the right side of his chest moments after the victim struck him on his head with a beer bottle during an altercation inside a third floor room at a Motel 6 in Brampton,

In accepting his version of events and finding him guilty, Justice Hill told the court that both sides agreed there had been some provocation that led to the fatal knife attack.

Grundy and several friends attended a party in one room in the motel that night while Hermiz and his friends were partying in another room.

Court heard how Grundy and two friends were in the lobby of the motel at about 1:15 a.m. the following morning when he had a brief conversation with two female friends from Hermiz and his group, including Carrington’s girlfriend.

“Grundy tried to engage in a conversation with them,” Cornelius said.

At about 2:27 a.m. the Hermiz group’s party was breaking up and people were heading home when members of that group discovered that a driver was delivering a pizza to the Grundy room where a birthday celebration was still under way.

Court heard how Carrington’s girlfriend asked Hermiz to go with him and his friends to the room where the pizza was being delivered because she was concerned for his safety.

“Grundy answered the door and a verbal dispute started,” Cornelius said.

Court heard that a verbal argument quickly escalated into a fight and that Grundy picked up a beer bottle and struck Hermiz over his head.

“Hermiz fell to the ground, then immediately got up and pulled out his knife and stabbed Grundy,” Cornelius said.

Court heard how the knife entered the right side of Grundy’s chest and punctured his lung and liver. He died a short time later in hospital.

Hermiz and his friends then fled. Police discovered the weapon later that day and he was arrested that evening.

Main entry at Saskatchewan pen “malfunctioning”

A critical point in the perimeter security at Saskatchewan Penitentiary, one of Canada’s biggest federal pens, is “malfunctioning,” according to information posted on a government tender website. According to the posting, the sally port gates at Sask. Pen, which holds between 600 and 700 maximum- and medium-security convicts, need to be repaired. The “sally port” at a federal penitentiary is a passageway usually big enough to permit trucks and other vehicles to drive into the prison compound. Sally ports are critical security points, in part, because they’re typically the biggest opening in the perimeter fence/s or wall that secure the complex.

Sally ports have been the focal point of escape attempts by convicts who have sometimes recognized them as vulnerabilities. At many maximum-security penitentiaries, the principal sally port consists of two large, electrically controlled sliding steel gates. Only one can be open at a time, ensuring an unbroken barrier of security. Sask. Pen is located just west of the core of Prince Albert, a city of about 35,000 people in central Saskatchewan.

Here’s the key passage in the posting (emphasis added):

Replace the malfunctioning Sally Port Gates providing principal
secure entry to the Saskatchewan Penitentiary. Ensure efficient
and reliable mechanical, electrical and security operation in
all weather conditions and adherence to other design
requirements as noted in the Terms of Reference.
Incrementally repair/replace sections of the Security and
Demarcation Fence.

Saskatchewan Penitentiary is located just west of the core of the city of Prince Albert, in central Saskatchewan

At Calgary Globalfest: Honour killings in Canada

I’m honoured to announce that I’ll be speaking about the Shafia honour killings and my book on the case during GlobalFest in Calgary in August 2013. The event, in its 10th year, is run by a not-for-profit society that is “dedicated to celebrating and showcasing Calgary’s cultural diversity and artistic excellence.” Although a centrepiece of the 10-day event is a spectacular fireworks festival that spans five days, GlobalFest also features a five-day human rights forum. The theme of this year’s forum is Women, Gender and Identity Issues through a Viewing Lens of Ethno-Cultural Diversity. My appearance falls under the heading of Multiculturalism and Violence Against Women. I’ll be speaking at a breakfast session on Wednesday, August 14, between 7:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m., at the University of Calgary downtown campus, located at 906, 8th Avenue SW. I’ll speak about how Canadian society failed the Shafia victims – Zainab, Sahar, Geeti and Rona – and why thousands more women and girls remain at risk in Canada. There will be a Question & Answer session after the talk.

More information, including ticket details, is available here.

For the latest news on the ongoing Shafia case, visit the Without Honour page.