Rob Tripp's Blog: Cancrime, page 8

Prolific predator too dangerous for parole will soon be free

An unrepentant sex offender labelled by police one of the most prolific online sex predators caught in Canada was too dangerous for early release from prison when he last appeared before the parole board, but he’ll soon be free. Mark Bedford (inset), a 29-year-old Ontario man, was ordered detained behind bars until he serves every day of his latest sentence, a 26-month term imposed in 2013. Corrections Canada will have to release him when his sentence expires August 22, 2015 and that should alarm anyone in his path.

I’ve been writing about Bedford since his first conviction in 2008. In 2009, I attended his first parole hearing held inside medium-security Warkworth Institution, a federal prison near Campbellford, Ontario. I had the distinct impression it was the first true glimpse of his deviance. He is remorseless, emotionally flat and deceptive and blames his victims. He seems upset only by the fact that he was caught. During the parole hearing, the words ‘psychopath’ and ‘psychopathy’ weren’t uttered, but I couldn’t help but feel that a far more disturbing diagnosis of Bedford was yet to be written. Under grilling by the parole board members, Bedford admitted he had a “big problem” but he also continued to duck blame for his acts. It was revealed that he tried to trick sex offender experts in prison who sought to assess him. In 2008 Bedford was convicted of 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. Experts who have assessed and treated Bedford concluded he is a pedophile but they aren’t certain if he prefers girls who are pre- or post-pubescent. The victims in his first convictions in 2008 were aged nine to 15.

At the 2009 parole hearing, 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, from the safety of his computer screen, 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 a parole board member grilled him, that he masturbated each time a girl performed for him, though he mumbled through parts of his answers, in apparent embarrassment. Bedford was asked if there were more than 63 victims who are named in his files.

“Ahhh, possibly,” he answered. “I’m not sure though, I can’t recall every one of them.”

Bedford was charged with a sexual assault before he went to prison in 2008 but the charge was withdrawn.

He told the parole board, during the 2009 hearing, that 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 claimed.

“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.

Here’s the Kingston Whig-Standard story from June 2013, when Bedford was sentenced to 26 months in prison, his second penitentiary term:

By Elliot Ferguson

A convicted sex offender was sentenced Tuesday to three years in prison for breaking the conditions of his release.

Mark Bedford, 27, pleaded guilty to two counts of breach of recognizance related to where he was living following his March 2011 release from a three-year sentence for Internet-related sex crimes.

Bedford, wearing a blue, short-sleeved plaid shirt, declined to say anything as Justice Allan Letourneau accepted a last-minute joint submission from Crown attorney Gerard Laarhuis and defence lawyer David Crowe.

“While he was in breach, he did not go out of his way to commit a breach,” Crowe said.

Crowe said Bedford had contacted police shortly after being released from prison but there was no record of that meeting.

Bedford received credit for nine months of pre-trial custody, meaning he is to serve 27 months.

After his 2011 release, Bedford was required to notify police if he was living with a child and was prohibited from being alone with a child without another adult in the room.

The court determined he violated both of those conditions because he was living in the same residence as a child in the months after his release from prison.

Bedford had been charged with sexual assault and sexual interference but those charges were withdrawn Tuesday.

Laarhuis said there was not enough reliable evidence to ensure a conviction on those charges.

“There wasn’t a reasonable expectation of conviction,” Laarhuis said.

Laarhuis said he was pleased with the sentence because the maximum penalty Bedford faced was four years — two years per count.

In 2008, Bedford pleaded guilty to 10 crimes, including luring, related to sexually exploiting girls on the Internet.

Bedford’s illegal activity involved hundreds of girls on two continents, who were extorted into performing sex acts in front of webcams. In one case, he coerced a 12-year-old girl into simulating sex with a family dog.

He was sentenced to three years in prison in 2008 and the next year was denied parole.

Parole board members noted Bedford had been diagnosed as a pedophile and was likely to commit a new sex crime involving a child before his sentence expired.

He served his full sentence.

Laarhuis said Bedford had refused counselling while in prison earlier.

“Mr. Bedford is essentially an untreated sex offender,” Laarhuis said.

When Bedford is released in August 2015, his sentence will have expired so he won’t be subject to any conditions and he won’t be required to report to a community parole officer. It’s possible that police in the jurisdiction where he plans to live may seek a judicial order (like this one imposed on him at release in 2011) that gives authorities some ability to track Bedford and to restrict his activities.

Here’s the written record of the Parole Board of Canada decision August 13, 2014 to keep Bedford locked up until he serves every day of his 26-month sentence (on mobile? click here to read doc):

 

Serial child killer David Threinen’s reign of terror

Terror took root in central Saskatchewan on this day 40 years ago. On June 15, 1975, two children, 12-year-old Dahrlyne Cranfield and Robert Grubesic (inset), 9, disappeared while riding their bicycles along the South Saskatchewan River in Saskatoon. Roughly a month later, Samantha Turner, 8, and Cathy Scott, 7, disappeared. Parents kept their children home behind locked doors. Finally, a tip led police to David Threinen, a truck driver with a history of sex attacks against children. He confessed and led officers to the bodies of his victims. He had strangled them and dumped them in two remote locations outside Saskatoon. A psychiatric report revealed in parole records (read document after the jump) would later describe Threinen as “a cold, amoral individual who felt compelled to offend sexually against children and who experienced no remorse for his victims even when he killed them.”

Threinen, who is serving life in prison on four counts of murder, appeared before the parole board in 2000. At the time, he was behind bars at Mountain Institution, a medium-security prison in British Columbia. Threinen told the board members that he deserved to die in prison. According to a Canadian Press report of the hearing, Threinen said: “I will spend the rest of my life in prison. I will die here. I’m where I belong. They’re still forcing me to take programs geared for release, a release I don’t want, and I’m getting tired of it. I’m just looking for help any place I can get it.”

The written record of that hearing (appears in full below) states that Threinen had a juvenile criminal record that began at an early age and included rape and molestation of young females. Threinen was charged with the murder in 1972 of a 16-year-old girl in Lethbridge. The charge was dropped because a cause of death could not be established.

Parole board members were told at the 2000 hearing that Threinen still represented a “significant risk” to the community. He was denied any form of release.

On mobile? Click here to read document.

Murder rate in Canada plunges to 47-year low

The rate at which Canadians are being murdered dropped in 2013 to its lowest level in 47 years, according to Statistics Canada. Nationally, there were 1.44 victims per 100,000 people in 2013, down eight per cent from 1.56 in 2012 and the lowest rate recorded since 1966. In 2013, 505 people were killed (includes murder, manslaughter, infanticide) in Canada, meaning that a nation of 35 million people had fewer killings than Los Angeles County (population 10 million), which recorded 595 homicides in 2013. The murder rate in the U.S. has generally been about three times higher than the rate in Canada for some time. Canada’s highest murder rate recorded since 1963 was in 1977, when it hit 3.0, according to StatsCan.

The new homicide report from StatsCan, which collects in one document all of the police recorded data on murders across the country that are reported to police (and we have to assume that most murders are known to police) is a trove of information, including data on the means by which people are slain (stabbing, at 40 per cent, is the most prevalent manner of killing), nature of relationships (most victims are known to their killer/s) and the rate at which police solve murders. Roughly one in every four killings is never solved by investigators, meaning that if the trend continues, more than 125 of the murders committed in 2013 will not be solved.

Here’s the complete 2013 homicide survey from Statistics Canada:

Leaders mislead on link between police spending and crime

It’s the silly season, with respect to policing, in Calgary and across Canada, as local governments finalize budgets for the coming year (years in some case) and politicians and policing leaders trot out familiar, hollow arguments to justify increases. In Calgary, the police budget now comprises nearly one quarter of annual civic spending ($354 million in 2015) yet officials warn that they may have to spend much more on policing in coming years in response to the city’s ballooning population. They make this argument in the absence of any science that establishes a link between police strength and crime rates and community safety.

Some social science has found that police spending has no effect on crime rates. Statistics Canada has tracked police resources and crime rates for decades and has found no clear relationship between them. “Further research is required to determine if there is a relationship between the rate of police strength and the crime rate,” the agency says. Police strength (the number of officers per 100,000 population) was at its highest level in Canada in the mid-1970s. Since then, it has remained relatively stable, while the crime rate has bounced up and down, peaking in 1991. For the subsequent 23 years since that highpoint, the crime rate has declined, while police strength has remained relatively stable. The crime rate has declined substantially since 1991.

How do we know that the declining crime rate isn’t a result of that consistent level of policing? We don’t, since there are few means, if any, to measure police performance and crime rates are a crude measure of police performance, since they reflect only crimes known to police and don’t reflect other police activity. But, if we adopt the position of civic leaders today, who tell us that we must maintain and/or increase spending on policing to ensure our safety, then surely the cities already spending the most should be among the safest?

Nope. Precisely the opposite is true. Among large metropolitan areas, the top three spenders on policing, Thunder Bay, Winnpeg and Regina, have the highest violent crime severity indexes.

The Calgary metropolitan area (which includes Airdrie, Rocky View County, Cochrane, Chestermere, Crossfield Tsuu T’ina Nation, Irricana, Beiseker), is middle of the pack for police strength, according to StatsCan, with 162 officers per 100,000 population (the bulk of those, roughly 2,000, in Calgary) and has a violent crime severity index in the lowest third of big centres.

“Vile” serial rapist blames victims for his imprisonment

After more than two decades behind bars, serial rapist Selva Subbiah (inset), a predator who assaulted hundreds of women, still blames his victims for his predicament. The “disturbing” revelation appears in the latest decision on his case by the Parole Board of Canada. The board ruled, in a decision in July this year, that Subbiah is too dangerous to be released from prison before he completes every day of his 24-year prison sentence. The board ordered Subbiah detained in prison until his sentence expires in January 2017, when he’ll immediately be deported to his home country of Malaysia. This marks the sixth consecutive year that the board has taken the unusual step of keeping him locked up, rather than granting conditional release, a form of early freedom that is given to most imprisoned criminals.Subbiah completed a sex offender maintenance program in June this year. It is a booster or refresher course for sex offenders who already have been through treatment programs. According to the written record of the latest parole decision, Subbiah continues to blame his victims:

The program report contains disturbing information where you continue to believe that many of the [women] who charged you had lied in order to receive attention or monetary advantage from book deals. You have refused to meet with your institutional parole officer, but have recently stated that you wish to do so.

The decision notes that Subbiah has shown “minimal gains” after completing a number of violence and sex offender treatment programs. His criminal history demonstrates “a pattern of violent sexual behaviour as established by your lengthy convictions and numerous victims.” He’s considered a high risk to commit new violent crimes including sex offences.

Subbiah was first convicted in Toronto in 1992. Police believe he began preying on women as soon as he arrived in Canada from Malaysia in 1980. He amassed a 24-year prison sentence for 75 crimes against 30 women and girls in Ontario, including 26 sexual assaults on victims as young as fourteen. Four of his victims were in relationships with him. Police investigators believe Subbiah victimized at least 500 women and perhaps as many as 1,000. One judge who sentenced him said his crimes were “so disgusting and so vile that no punishment ascribed by this court would do justice to you.” Subbiah’s catalogue of crimes includes 2002 convictions for trying to manipulate women from behind bars. At the time, he was confined at maximum-security Kingston Penitentiary.

Last year, Subbiah failed in a bizarre legal claim that Corrections Canada and the the Parole Board had breached his privacy by releasing the written record of a parole decision in 2008. The record was published on Cancrime and Subbiah claimed that disclosure allowed convicts at Kingston Penitentiary, where he had been imprisoned by then for more than a decade, to discover his monstrous record as a sexual predator. Subbiah was stabbed at Kingston Pen in 2009.

In May 2013, Subbiah was transferred to medium-security Warkworth Institution, near Campbellford, Ontario, where he remains behind bars.

» Read all of Cancrime’s coverage on Subbiah’s case

Here is the complete written record of the Parole Board decision in July 2014 to detain Subbiah until he has served all of his 24-year prison sentence:

On mobile? Click here to read document

Lessons for Calgary from a failed, body-less murder prosecution

There is a name – Robert Baltovich – that Calgary Police homicide investigators likely are loath to consider as they hunt the bodies of three murder victims. Baltovich (inset) is a member of an exclusive club in Canadian criminal history: a man convicted of murder in the absence of the body of a victim, who was later was exonerated. Baltovich was convicted of second-degree murder in 1992, although police had not found the body of his purported victim, his girlfriend Elizabeth Bain. The 22-year-old Toronto woman disappeared in 1990. Baltovich spent eight years in prison. In 2008, he was acquitted after a second trial. Baltovich is suing, claiming malicious prosecution, in a case that soon will pass the quarter century mark and that exemplifies the difficulties of a prosecution in which authorities lack a critical piece of evidence, the body of the victim. Elizabeth Bain’s remains have never been found. In Calgary, nearly two months have elapsed since the disappearance of Alvin Liknes, 66, his wife Kathryn, 53, and their five-year-old grandson Nathan O’Brien. Police have said that their bodies have not been found. Despite this, investigators concluded that the three were murdered. Douglas Garland, a 54-year-old man with business and personal ties to the victims and a criminal record, has been charged with the murders.

The victims, (from left) Alvin Liknes, Kathryn Liknes, Nathan O'Brien

Two weeks after the disappearances, Garland was charged with two counts of first-degree murder related to the Likneses and one count of second-degree murder for Nathan, an indication that investigators believe the boy’s killing was not intentional. Despite what Calgary’s police chief described as an “immense investigation” conducted by a small army of 200 officers, investigators, analysts, forensic experts and others, the bodies of the victims have not been located. At the news conference in mid July when police announced the charges, Chief Rick Hanson said investigators had reviewed 900 tips received in the first two weeks of the probe.

“The bodies of the three victims have not been found and we continue to ask people to come forward with any information they may have,” Hanson said. “Most importantly, we ask rural property and business owners to please search their properties for anything suspicious.”

Hanson did not say that investigators did not have any forensic evidence linked to the bodies of the victims so it is possible that police recovered fragments of tissue, fluids, clothing or other material that fuelled their conclusion that the three missing people were murdered. Any such findings could have helped investigators construct a timeline and determine where the victims were killed. Police have said that there were signs of a violent struggle inside the Liknes home in Calgary, where the three victims were last seen, that likely left one of the trio injured.

“We want to be able to find the bodies so that the family can have the final closure on this,” Hanson said, on July 14. Police have not given any indication, since that time, that they have located the bodies.

Douglas Garland is escorted to the Calgary Police processing unit on July 14, 2014 (photo: David Moll, Calgary Herald)

It isn’t impossible to convict a person of murder without a body. Peter Stark was convicted in 1994 of first-degree murder in the death of Julie Stanton, a 14-year-old girl who had been his neighbour in Pickering, Ontario. Julie disappeared in 1990. Her body was found two years after Stark had been convicted and sent to prison. In Stark’s appeal, the Court of Appeal for Ontario noted that at trial “there was no crime scene evidence placed before the jury, nor any other forensic evidence establishing a connection between [Stark] and Julie Stanton,” (emphasis added) yet Stark’s appeal was dismissed. In the only interview he’s given since his imprisonment, Stark told me, in a telephone conversation from Kingston Penitentiary in 1996, where he had begun serving his life sentence, that he was innocent. He remains behind bars.

In 1987, Al Dolejs, a Calgary man, was convicted of murdering his 12-year-old son Paul and his 10-year-old daughter Gabi. Their bodies were not found until after Dolejs was convicted, when he led police to the remains.

In a first-degree murder case the prosecution must establish, beyond a reasonable doubt, four essential elements: that the accused person committed an unlawful act, that the unlawful act caused the death of the victim, that the accused person had the intent required for murder and, the murder was both planned and deliberate.

In a case where there is no witness to the killing, Crown prosecutors must rely on circumstantial evidence to attempt to establish that the accused was with or near the victim in the place and at the time when it is most likely he or she was killed.

Without a body, the prosecution faces the unenviable task of establishing that the victim died and explaining the death – in this case the deaths of three people – without the best evidence. With a body, investigators often can determine the manner of death, that is, was the person shot, stabbed, strangled, bludgeoned or killed by some other means? A conclusion on manner of death sometimes points investigators to a murder weapon – a knife, gun or other instrument – something used to commit the crime that can be tied by forensics or other evidence to the accused.

Many murderers – because most aren’t professional assassins – use what they have at hand or what they can easily obtain to kill someone and to dispose of a body. In some cases, a killer is sloppy enough to use an item he owns or that is easily identified as belonging to him. In other cases, a murderer will purchase weapons or other implements that can later be tied to him, if found. Cop killers James Hutchison and Richard Ambrose purchased shovels at a hardware store, evidence that linked them to the freshly dug graves of the two police officers the pair murdered and buried near Moncton, New Brunswick.

Bodies often are repositories of evidence – hairs, fibres, fingerprints, DNA – that strongly link the accused to the corpse. Even if the body does not show clear evidence of physical contact with the murderer, it may offer evidence of a place – a location that might be tied to the murderer.

In the killing of Elizabeth Bain, police had none of these things. They did not have any forensic evidence that directly linked Baltovich to her murder. “The Crown’s case was entirely circumstantial,” Ontario’s top court noted, in a decision released in 2004 that paved the way for Baltovich’s exoneration. Because the Garland prosecution is at an early stage in the court process, it has not been revealed whether investigators have forensic evidence that links him to the victims. A murder prosecution built solely on circumstantial evidence isn’t necessarily weak. Juries at murder trials (most Canadian murder trials are conducted before juries) are told that they may infer facts from circumstantial evidence, such as records that establish a person’s location at a particular time, in the absence of direct evidence, such as the testimony of a witness who saw the accused at a location where the victim was found. In a case where the prosecution’s evidence is wholly or largely circumstantial, a judge also will caution jurors that they cannot convict the accused “unless you are satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that accused’s guilt is the only rational conclusion to be drawn from the whole of the evidence.”

In the Baltovich case, investigators and prosecutors could not establish with precision where, when or how Elizabeth Bain was murdered. Three days after she disappeared, her car was found, its seats stained with blood that matched Bain’s blood. The pattern of stains indicated that a body had been dragged into the car through the passenger door. At Baltovich’s trial, the prosecution laid out a theory: In a jealous rage on June 19, Baltovich killed his girlfriend, who was breaking off their relationship. He hid her body in the car for three days, then drove to a remote area 65 kilometres northeast of Toronto, where he disposed of her remains “in a place that to this day remains a mystery.”

Ultimately, Baltovich’s conviction was overturned primarily because the appeal court found that his trial was unfair. “The charge to the jury was unfair and unbalanced,” Ontario’s top court ruled. “It also contained significant errors of law that were prejudicial to the appellant.” The court ordered a new trial but at the second trial, the prosecution called no evidence and Baltovich was acquitted.

It is impossible to know what evidence investigators would have uncovered had Bain’s body been found soon after her disappearance. Since there was evidence she had been seriously injured (not unlike the finding at the Liknes home in Calgary), there might have been wounds on her body that pointed to a weapon, something tangible that could be tied to a killer. Finding Bain’s body would have cemented a timeline, narrowing the window of opportunity in which a perpetrator could have committed the murder and allowing investigators to zero in on particular individuals who had the opportunity to commit the crime during that period.

***

Though investigators may still be actively hunting the bodies of Alvin and Kathryn Liknes and Nathan O’Brien, those bodies would provide substantially less information if they are found now. If the three victims were killed and their bodies left outdoors, exposed to the elements, soon after they disappeared June 30, the remains would be primarily skeletal. We know this because of pioneering research done in the U.S. by forensic anthropologist Bill Bass. Bass and his researchers at the University of Tennessee developed a formula that charts the decomposition of a human body, based on surrounding temperature. A body is well on its way to skeletonization when it has an ADD (accumulated degree day) total of 800, which could be, for example, 10 days of 80 degree (fahrenheit) weather. The formula is applicable anywhere in the world. In Calgary in July, the average mean temperature for the month was 18 C (64 F), a figure that would produce an ADD of 1,984 (31 days X 64). The average mean for the first 24 days of August was 17 C (62 F), producing another 1,488 ADD. This is a total ADD of nearly 3,500, nearly three times the amount required for a body to skeletonize. Bass notes, in Beyond the Body Farm (HarperCollins 2007) that “by around 1,250 to 1,300 accumulated-degree-days, a body anywhere in the world would have been reduced to bare bone or bone covered with dry mummified tissue.”

***

Here’s the news briefing by Calgary Police Chief Rick Hanson, held July 14, 2014, at which he revealed that murder charges would be laid although, at the time, he would not identify Douglas Garland as the suspect:

Notorious child sex killer Duane Taylor murdered in prison

A child sex killer who was possessed by deviant desires to molest and harm children beginning in his youth, has been murdered in a prison in Manitoba, according to Winnipeg Free Press crime reporter Mike McIntyre. Duane Taylor (inset) is notorious in Kingston, Ontario, where he raped and murdered a two-year-old girl, April Morrison, in 1981. Taylor has been behind bars since his conviction for first-degree murder in April’s slaying, a crime that rocked the small eastern Ontario city.

April’s murder also revealed a series of failures that put Taylor on the street in Kingston. He murdered April just 11 days after he had been freed from maximum-security Kingston Penitentiary, where he had been serving a sentence for trying to rape a four-year-old girl. Authorities knew that Taylor was desperately in need of treatment.

“They had to let him go and at that time I think everybody was afraid, positive that he was going to do something,” recalled Jack McKenna, Kingston’s retired Crown attorney, who later prosecuted Taylor for April’s murder. He spoke to me about the case in 2010.

Taylor’s release was badly mishandled. Authorities knew he was deeply troubled, and borderline mentally retarded. He was desperately in need of psychiatric care, yet he left Kingston Pen Aug. 10 and went to a halfway house in Ottawa. Officials there decided within days that Taylor could not stay at Horizon House. A plan was made to move him to the Whitby psychiatric hospital, but a bed was not immediately available. Taylor returned to Kingston on Aug. 12. The Salvation Army provided temporary accommodation, until the psychiatric hospital had room for Taylor. He stayed first at the Sally Ann’s Harbour Light Centre. On Aug. 18, he was placed at a rooming house at 179 Montreal St. Taylor’s window overlooked a park across the street. The man who was under orders not to go anywhere near parks, schools and playgrounds had been deposited in a neighbourhood teeming with children. April played at that park.

Click here for my complete account of April’s murder and its aftermath, as well as the record of his 2010 parole hearing.

Here’s the complete story from the Winnipeg Free Press of Taylor’s murder at Stony Mountain Institution, a federal prison in Manitoba:

Slain inmate serving indeterminate sentence for death of young child

By: Mike McIntyre

Winnipeg Free Press

The inmate slain last weekend at Stony Mountain Institution was a child killer who’d been behind bars for more than three decades.

Duane Edward Taylor, 53, has been identified by the Correctional Service of Canada as the victim. He was found unresponsive in his cell Saturday evening. Stonewall RCMP said they received a call around 10:15 p.m.

Staff members who found Taylor immediately began performing CPR, but he could not be resuscitated.

RCMP have confirmed a homicide investigation is now underway at the medium-security prison. No arrests have been made.

Taylor was found guilty of first-degree murder for the 1981 abduction, rape and killing of two-year-old April Marie Morrison in Kingston, Ont. He was given an indeterminate sentence in 1982 and had previously lost bids for parole. He was living at a halfway house just down the street from the little girl’s home.

Taylor had several previous convictions involving sexual assaults on children and had been released from jail only days before the deadly attack.

Realtor: Calgary mass murder house has “all the right bones”

Calgary realtor Tom Malin needs a good editor. Malin has one of the most talked about real estate listings in Calgary right now. He’s selling a 53-year-old two-storey (inset) on a leafy street in Brentwood, one of Cowtown’s older neighbourhoods in the northwest. The house at 11 Butler Crescent NW is listed at $489,900. The house is described, in Malin’s listing, as having “all the right bones for you and your family.” The word choice seems questionable and tasteless, given that the house was the site, 15 weeks ago, of a horrific mass murder in which five people were stabbed to death. Having ‘good bones’ is real estate marketing lingo tantamount to saying that the structure and foundation of a house is solid, but, cosmetically, it needs work. Surely Malin could have found a more creative and tasteful way to describe a property that is a lightning rod for community grief.

Here’s a screenshot of the MLS listing for the house, as it appeared online on the morning of July 29, 2014, since it’s possible that it might soon be altered:

The MLS ad, as it appeared on the morning of July 29, 2014, for 11 Butler Crescent NW in Calgary, the house where five people were murdered in April 2014

Matthew de Grood, a 22-year-old Calgary man who is the son of a senior city police officer, is charged with five counts of first-degree murder. He’s accused of appearing at a party that was being held April 15 at the house on Butler Crescent and stabbing to death Lawrence Hong, 27, Joshua Hunter, 23, Kaitlin Perras, 23, Zackariah Rathwell, 21, and Jordan Segura, 22. De Grood was recently ordered to undergo more psychiatric evaluation. A preliminary hearing has been scheduled for March 2015. It is a hearing to determine if the case can proceed to trial, although the bar is set low to make the determination and few cases don’t proceed beyond the prelim stage. Evidence is often heard and witnesses called during preliminary hearings but those details are almost always kept secret until they are presented during a trial.

The five people murdered in April 2014 at a Calgary house party, from left, Zackariah Rathwell, Lawrence Hong, Kaitlin Perras, Jordan Segura, Joshua Hunter

Could serial killer Paul Bernardo father babies behind bars?

Do killers locked in Canadian prisons marry, get conjugal visits with their new wives and father children, while they remain behind bars? Yes, yes, and yes. In fact, it happens regularly. But what about a sadistic serial rapist and killer like Paul Bernardo (inset), who has been in prison since November 1995, after he was convicted of murdering two teenage girls in Ontario, Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy? Well, maybe. The questions are relevant, given news (broken in a story by Sunmedia) that Bernardo has struck up a romantic relationship with a 30-year-old woman from London, Ontario, who wants to marry the man considered one of the most depraved serial killers caught in Canada in the last half century. I think Bernardo may be working a scheme with this relationship.

I discussed my theory recently in an interview on 630 CHED Radio Edmonton with Dan Tencer and Andrew Grose. We also talked about the rules governing private family visits at penitentiaries, Bernardo’s prison living conditions, and the dynamics of convict relationships with women in the community.

Keep in mind that Bernardo has always maintained that his former wife, Karla Homolka, killed Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy. He acknowledges he committed sadistic sexual assaults on the girls but he did not end their lives. From the Court of Appeal for Ontario decision on Bernardo’s appeal against his nine convictions:

The accused was convicted on two counts of first degree murder, as well as kidnapping, unlawful confinement, sexual assault and offering an indignity to a dead body. He appealed his conviction on all nine counts but asked for a new trial only on the two counts of first degree murder. He admitted that he kidnapped the two victims and that he confined them in his house while he brutally sexually assaulted them. He maintained, however, that his wife H alone was the murderer and that he was guilty only of manslaughter.

In addition to the nine convictions related to Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy, Bernardo also confessed to sex attacks on dozens of other women. In addition to his life-25 sentence, he was declared a dangerous offender, meaning he could be kept locked up forever. While chances are good that he will never be released, Bernardo already believes he deserves cushier prison living conditions, as I revealed last year in this story about his aspirations for a transfer to a lesser security facility.

Here’s the complete Sunmedia story about Bernardo’s London girlfriend:

By Sam Pazzano and Randy Richmond

July 3, 2014

From a prison cell, serial sex killer Paul Bernardo has charmed and manipulated an attractive, university-educated woman into planning to marry him, the Toronto Sunhas learned.

The 30-year-old London, Ont., woman admitted she has been writing letters to the Scarborough Rapist, telling friends the schoolgirl killer is “innocent” and was a bystander to the rapes and torture slayings of Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy.

Sporting a recent ankle tattoo that says “Paul’s girl” in cursive writing, she has been corresponding with Bernardo since last fall.

But with the relationship now coming to light, the woman said she “did something that got people upset and she is rethinking … and struggling with it.”

The bride-to-be told friends she has wedding bands and described her “Paul” as someone who’s serving time “for the most horrible crimes you could imagine.

“He is a kind man, a Christian, a very nice man,” she told the Sun.

A friend quoted her as saying: “He told her not to tell her parents until after they were married.”

In an interview, the blonde deflected question after question about marrying Bernardo, but never indicated she didn’t want to wed him or that the wedding plans were off.

An independent source confirmed the woman, whom the Sun has decided not to identify at this time, took steps to advance a plan to wed Bernardo.

However, her parents insisted their daughter is reconsidering the decision as “reality has set in.

“She said Bernardo called her ‘the most beautiful woman in the world,’ ” her father said.

When asked how the sex killer could manipulate her into a relationship, he said: “She has had a number of bad relationships that undermined her self-esteem despite her brilliance. She is looking for someone who will love her unconditionally.”​

Her father agreed the woman’s intelligence, emotional fragility and belief in her own street smarts made her the perfect victim for Bernardo.

He said his daughter also believed in Bernardo’s innocence.

“He has convinced her that he didn’t do this (rapes or murders). But, after the conversation last week, I think she has changed her mind.”

The family is hoping that she has abandoned the ill-conceived plan.

“It was very easy for him to get her locked into a train of thought. I’ve been very explicit that he actually did these things and reality sunk in this last week in a big way,” the father said.

“I am getting the feeling that from the way she was defending him in the beginning that now reality has finally kicked in and she realizes, ‘What have I got myself into?’ ” he said.

“I mean, to the point, she’s desperate to get a job today because she’s afraid of what this news would do.

“I told her the media have something that indicates (you are planning to marry him) and she says, ‘Well, he doesn’t get out for three more years (2018, first eligibility for parole).’ I bluntly told her, ‘Dear, he’s never going to get out.’ ”

Describing his daughter as “brilliant but psychologically and emotionally fragile and lacking in street smarts,” the father said she replied that Bernardo’s “a Canadian citizen and is applying as a right to get out on full parole.

“She totally denied planning to marry him,” said the father, who was interviewed several times last week.

He and his wife confronted their daughter in January or February this year after learning she had been writing letters to Bernardo in order to “research” a book.

“Her mom said, ‘Don’t you even write him because everything you write is documented. Nothing goes through (undetected) and you don’t want to be even known as anyone who has even written to this person,’ ” the father said. “We believed that was the end of it.”

The woman described asking her pastor about forgiveness, referring to Bernardo without naming him.

She quoted the pastor as saying, “It is not for another person to judge his brother.

“And I said, ‘But what about the worst thing ever, could that be forgiven?’ ” she recalled.

“He said, ‘As soon as that person committed the act, God has already forgiven him,’ ” she said in an interview.

Two weeks ago, the Sun contacted the father, inquiring whether he knew if his daughter was corresponding with an inmate with whom she wanted a relationship.

The father immediately blurted out: “It’s Paul Bernardo, Oh my God, Oh my God.

“I went to see her last week. And she didn’t deny writing the letters (since February). She said she hadn’t opened the last three letters he had written,” the father said. “We haven’t seen anything.”

It was a few months ago that a friend of the woman noticed something new on her left ankle: A tattoo that read: “Paul’s girl.”

In an interview, the woman insisted the tattoo referred to a high school friend — not Bernardo.

But a friend who knew her since their university days disagreed.

“She did mention she was seeing somebody named Paul, that he had done some time. She made it sound like he was a working accountant in Toronto and they had wedding bands,” the friend revealed.

“She said he told her not to tell her parents they were getting married until after it was over,” the friend said.

“She said it wasn’t really him who did it. He was just there and it was the worst crime you could imagine,” a friend quoted her as saying. “She maintains he’s innocent.”

The woman’s friend was dumbfounded when informed that her friend’s “fiance” was actually one of Canada’s most notorious serial killers and rapists.

“I was aware she was dating someone named Paul, but I didn’t know that it was Paul Bernardo. It’s pretty crazy,” the friend said.

“She’s a really smart girl, but has troubles. It doesn’t completely surprise me she wrote him a letter, but the fact she is actually planning on marrying him … that’s nuts,” she told the Sun.

Bernardo, 50, is serving a life sentence for the first-degree murders of the two schoolgirls and was also declared a dangerous offender in 1995 after pleading guilty to 32 sex-related crimes, including 12 rapes in the east end of Toronto dating to 1987.

Bernardo turned down a request to be interviewed by the Sun, which was forwarded by Correctional Service Canada.

CSC stated privacy laws dictate it “cannot discuss the specifics of an inmate’s case.”

In Canada, all inmates, with the exception of those on disciplinary restrictions or at risk for family violence or identified as Special Handling Unit cases, are permitted “private family visits” of up to 72 hours duration once every two months.

Eligible visitors include spouses or common-law partners of at least 12 months prior to incarceration; children; parents; foster parents; siblings; grandparents; and “persons with whom, in the opinion of the institutional head, the inmate has a close familial bond.”

During a visit, staff members have regular contact with the inmate and visitors to protect the visitors.

Due to privacy legislation, CSC can neither confirm nor deny any nuptial plans for an inmate.

In e-mails to the Sun, CSC said: “Once an inmate makes a request to marry while incarcerated, the institutional management along with the inmate’s case management team will assess the request to make sure it would not pose a risk to the security of the institution, staff and public.

“The institutional head is the authority responsible for determining if a marriage will be accommodated within the facility,” the statement continued.

CSC has “no jurisdiction over whether two people can obtain a marriage licence,” stating marriages are governed by provincial legislation.

An interview request with the decision-maker within CSC was denied.

Bernardo is eligible for day parole on Feb. 17, 2015, and full parole on Feb. 17, 2018, but, due to his notoriety, it’s unlikely he’ll ever be paroled.

As a dangerous offender, Bernardo has no entitlement to statutory release.

In a 2006 interview with police detectives at Kingston Penitentiary, Bernardo acknowledged that he is courted by admirers on the street. “I get letters,” Bernardo told police. “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.”

Judge accepts convict’s claim that shiv in prison cell isn’t his

Through my late teens and early 20s – in late 70s and 80s – heavy-duty plastic milk crates had one notable use, as containers/carriers for long-play, 33 rpm records. Albums fit perfectly into the rugged, square containers that were designed to transport jugs and plastic bags of milk and other products from dairies to retailers and restaurants. It turns out the crates have an entirely unexpected use inside a federal penitentiary, as the raw material for fabrication of a sturdy and lethal prison shank. I dug out of my personal archive a photo I snapped of one of these marvels of convict engineering (inset, in full after jump), after seeing a recent decision of a Federal Court judge who tossed out the internal prison conviction of an Ontario inmate after a five-inch long Fibreglas knife was found inside the convict’s cell.

A correctional officer at Collins Bay Institution found the Fibreglas shank in the cell of convict Harmanpal Sidhu. Sidhu claimed it wasn’t his weapon but he was convicted by an internal tribunal of a prison offence. He appealed and recently, a federal court judge tossed out the conviction. Judge George R. Locke concluded that:

Also, a finding of not guilty should be entered because the ICP [Independent Chairperson of the Collins Bay Institution Disciplinary Tribunal] accepted facts sufficient to raise a reasonable doubt as to whether the applicant had legal possession of the weapon in question. Here, I refer specifically to (i) the finding that there was no evidence that the window sill where the weapon was hidden had been searched since the applicant had moved into the cell; and (ii) the finding that there was a risk that someone could place the weapon in the cell without the applicant’s knowledge. Therefore, based on the evidence accepted by the ICP, it is reasonably possible that the weapon had been left in the cell without the applicant’s knowledge either by a prior occupant, or by someone who entered the cell, either with or without permission, when it was unlocked and the applicant was not present.

Sidhu was awarded $2,000 in costs.

This photo (click image for larger version) shows a shiv recovered by staff at Frontenac Institution, a minimum-security prison in Kingston, Ontario:

A knife (a shiv or shank in prison slang) fashioned from a melted and sharpened chunk of milk crate at minimum-security Frontenac Institution in Kingston, Ontario (photo by Rob Tripp)