Rob Tripp's Blog: Cancrime, page 9

Five years after Shafia killings, legal process unresolved

Five years ago today, around 10 a.m. on June 30,  2009, Brent White, a constable with the municipal police department in Kingston, Ontario, received a dispatch instructing him to go to Kingston Mills, a scenic and secluded spot on the northern edge of the city’s built-up area. At Kingston Mills, a series of ancient locks lifted boats from the level of Lake Ontario up to the level of the Cataraqui River. At one of the locks, a submerged car was spotted that morning by lock worker John Bruce. He had called police, beginning a chain of events that would reveal a horrifying quadruple homicide, Canada’s worst mass honour killing, orchestrated by Afghan immigrant Mohammad Shafia (inset).

Roughly two and a half years after John Bruce’s discovery, three people, Mohammad Shafia, his wife Tooba and his teenage son Hamed, were each convicted of four counts of first-degree murder. A jury concluded, based on a mountain of largely circumstantial evidence that the trio had plotted and carried out the execution-like murders of four members of the Shafia family, Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, Geeti, 13 and Rona, 50, who was Shafia’s first wife in a polygamous family originally from Afghanistan. The killers appealed their convictions and those appeals are still, a year and a half after the convictions, still winding their way through the court process.

Below is a promotional video that was produced (though not released publicly before) to promote my book on the case, Without Honour, which was first published in October 2012.

Click here for my behind-the-scenes account of how my coverage of this case began.

Click here for the Without Honour page, with links to all of my coverage.

4 reasons Justin Bourque may be a good candidate for parole

What happens to Justin Bourque (inset) if he is convicted of murdering three RCMP officers and wounding two others in New Brunswick? Will the 24 year old spend decades penned in a small concrete box, languishing there until he dies of old age? Maybe not. Bourque, who faces three counts of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder in a shooting rampage in Moncton, N.B., on June 4, 2014, could be a good candidate for parole, some day, given the bits and pieces of information that are now available.

It’s early to consider Bourque’s long-term fate, given the Canadian justice system’s presumption of innocence, but that principle often seems little more than a charade and this is one of those occasions. Many people say Bourque did it – he cold-bloodedly hunted and murdered three police officers. All that’s left is an assessment of Bourque’s mental state and his fitness to stand trial, presuming that he pleads not guilty. Once convicted, the harshest punishment he can face is life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. As a multiple murderer, Bourque would not qualify for a faint hope hearing, a process that could reduce the 25-year parole ineligibility.

He would certainly spend considerable time behind bars, but I believe he could be a good candidate for parole, at some point in the distant future, because:

1/ there’s ample precedent; that is, multiple murderers, even cop killers believe it or not, have been granted parole

2/ Bourque has not, according to some reports, led a violent life, and is not entrenched in a “criminal lifestyle,” a key factor that parole board members consider during hearings

3/ he’s young so there’s plenty of time for genuine repentance, remorse and rehabilitation

4/ he appears to be the product of a stable and supportive family, and parole board members always consider an offender’s background and community support

Cop killers who have been released from prison:

» In 2000, Richard Ambrose was freed from prison on full parole. He’s serving a life sentence for the cold-blood murders in 1974 of two Moncton city police officers. Ambrose, who has since changed his name to Bergeron in a bid to duck attention, had admitted shooting one of the victims in the head after the officers were forced into a shallow grave. The other killer, James Hutchison, died in prison in 2011 without ever winning parole. Ambrose and Hutchison were first sentenced to hang but the sentences were commuted to life in prison after the abolition in 1976 of the death penalty. Ambrose’s parole was revoked in 2005 and he was sent back to prison.

» In 2010, the parole board granted passes to Craig Munro, an imprisoned killer who, along with his brother Jamie, murdered Toronto police officer Michael Sweet in 1980. In 2011, the board continued Munro’s passes, despite public outrage. Jamie Munro was granted full parole in 1992 and in 1994 was granted permission to move to Italy.

» Laurie Ann Bell was released in 2008, after serving two thirds of her 10-year sentence for manslaughter in the death of RCMP officer Dennis Strongquill in 2001 though her release was not, technically parole. She was freed on statutory release, a mandatory form of freedom in which the parole board does not have a say. She and two men, Danny and Robert Sand, were on a 10-day crime spree across the Prairies in December 2001. They stole seven trucks in and around Edmonton, Alberta and robbed a bank. The trio broke into a farm and stole 10 weapons and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. On December 21, they were pulled over near Russell, Manitoba, in a routine traffic stop by RCMP officers Brian Auger and Strongquill. Robert Sand opened fire on the Mountie vehicle with a sawed-off shotgun. The officers drove off but the trio chased them, ramming the police vehicle. Auger was thrown out but Strongquill was trapped. Sand, in the words of one of Bell’s parole board reports, “fired four shotgun blasts into his upper torso.” At Bell’s trial, witnesses said she shouted “kill him! kill him!” Bell was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 10 years in prison, but was given credit for three years of pre-trial custody. Danny Sand was killed by police when the murderous threesome was cornered at a Saskatchewan motel. Robert Sand was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. Bell’s released was revoked after she caught consorting with a male prison guard but she was freed again.

Here’s the complete Montreal Gazette story that suggests Bourque has a supportive family:

By Sue Montgomery

Montreal Gazette/MONCTON, N.B.

Victor and Denise Bourque had tried without success to get help for their son Justin, whom they described as a gentle person who had gone off the rails since he stopped going to church with his large, devout family.

“We even tried to get the police involved but they said they couldn’t do anything about it and that their hands were tied,” Victor Bourque said in a telephone interview Sunday, four days after their 24-year-old son allegedly shot and killed three Mounties, injured two others and gripped a locked-down city in fear as police scoured the woods for a heavily armed man. “It is sad. People are falling through the cracks and this is another one.”

The couple, described by friends as gracious, hard-working folks, say they have been holed up in an undisclosed place, away from prying and gossipy crowds, crying and traumatized by what their son is alleged to have done. Their hearts go out to the families of the dead and injured officers, gunned down Wednesday evening while responding to several panicked calls from residents of Moncton north who’d seen a man in army fatigues and with guns slung over his shoulders.

The Bourques had seen their son — number three in a string of seven children — a few hours before tragedy struck at about 7 p.m. but haven’t spoken to him since he was captured early Friday, ending a tense 30-hour manhunt, and taken into custody. He faces three counts of first-degree murder and two of attempted murder — his first run-in with the law.

“We are devastated,” Victor Bourque said, not wanting to go into detail about what might have led to his son’s violent path for fear of jeopardizing the court case. “It’s the worst nightmare that any parent can go through.”

Bourque said he is well aware of the unkind and sometimes false things that are being said about him and his family, and that people may be blaming the parents for what happened. But like everyone in the community and especially as parents of the accused, they are doing some deep soul-searching, weighing all the what-ifs and if-onlys, desperate for answers to the mystery their son had become.

“For anyone who says you didn’t raise your son right, that would be nothing less than ignorance,” he said. “I went all out and did everything possible.

“If someone from your family rejects what you taught them, that’s their choice and they live with the consequences,” he said. “But I hope (Justin) will still have something from his upbringing that will help him.”

Perhaps, said the father, his son will rediscover God while locked up, like so many inmates do.

As the Bourque family remained hidden, their congregation gathered as usual for Sunday mass at Moncton’s Eglise Christ-Roi, the large Roman Catholic Church on Dominion St. Father Edmour Babineau read two letters of condolence to the mourning congregation — from the Archbishop of Moncton,  Valery Vienneau, and Paul-Andre Durocher, the Archbishop of Gatineau and president of the Archbishops of Quebec.

Both expressed solidarity and support for the people of Moncton, but the Bourque family was not mentioned in either letter, nor throughout the mass. Babineau said he was replacing the church’s regular priest, who was on a retreat, and therefore didn’t know the Bourques.

A woman attending the service, who gave her name only as Irene, said Justin Bourque, whom she described as timid, came to mass with the rest of his family every Sunday but stopped about three or four years ago. She said his parents were gracious and kind and Victor Bourque worked two jobs for 35 years to support his seven children — five daughters and two sons.

Irene said that during her time working in a support network, helping families deal with tragedies, she met people “time and again” who couldn’t get the proper help for mental illness.

“We dealt with some suicides, and parents always told us they tried to get help but were always told, ‘unless he hurts someone, there’s not much we can do.’

“If you could get the right help from the beginning, when the signs start and not later when it’s too late, these tragedies could be avoided.”

Mental illness still carries a huge stigma, she said, noting that people are quick to help people with cancer, or handicaps or other issues.

“But if you’re acting out of sorts, people just stay away from you,” she said. “They’re afraid.”

She was sickened by the people who referred to Justin Bourque as a monster and noted the Bourque family are innocent victims in a terrible tragedy that is affecting the entire city.

“Can you imagine how his sisters must feel and how they are going to live here?”

The whole tragedy has made her very emotional and unable to sleep, said Irene, adding that in a way, the whole community is responsible for not taking care of each other.

“There but the grace of God,” she said. “It could happen to any one of us.”

Another family friend and god father to four of the Bourque children said a “young Justin” was a victim himself, with a weakness in him that amplified his radicalization towards authority.

“Parental authority I think was his first obstacle because it was too much for him, and his way of seeing things caused clashes sometimes,” he said. “I never wanted to ask too many questions, but that was what the father told me.”

Victor Bourque said they felt terrible for the families of the three men killed — David Ross, 32, Fabrice Georges Gevaudan, 45, and Douglas James Larche 40 — and wanted to convey his and his wife’s “deepest sympathies and condolences” to them and the community.

“There are no words I can say that will change anything,” he said, his voice calm. “It is a tragedy that we will have to get through together.”

A regimental funeral will be held Tuesday at 1 p.m. at the Moncton Coliseum. Hotels in the city are completely booked with officers from across the country.

Bourque said that while it was “nothing short of miraculous” that his son gave himself up, the family still has a long road ahead as the case winds itself through the slow legal process.

While the crown and defence didn’t ask for a psychiatric assessment to be done on Justin at his arraignment on Friday, the senior Bourque said he fully expects it to happen at some stage.

“It’s not the guns that do the damage, it’s the mind behind it.”

Bourque said he assumed people would judge his family for having home schooled their children, and said such criticism came from a “place of ignorance” although he didn’t want to judge.

But he said society in general needs to reassess “where we’re going in life and respect it from beginning to end.”

Allowing abortions and euthanasia are just ways to avoid things that have become inconveniences in life, he said, citing from St. Paul in the Bible, who says we have to look after our weaker brethren.

“They can point the finger at our son but we all have to look at ourselves,” he said, his voice becoming more forceful. “The evils that exist in society do have an influence and we need to take stock to heal as a community.”

We are all responsible by supporting certain violent and sexually explicit movies, television shows and video games that don’t respect life, Bourque said. “These affect minds that are already vulnerable. (Justin) was a gentle person so for somebody to snap like this, there had to be something.”

Last month, the couple posted a quotation on their Facebook page that may have been indicative of the turmoil the family was going through in the months leading up to the shooting.

It reads, Sometimes you have to stop worrying, wondering and doubting. Have faith that things will work out, maybe not how you planned, but just how it’s meant to be.

“You hope for the best for your children,” Bourque said. “I hope he gets the help he needs to renew his life.”

Contamination of Kingston Pen land exceeds guidelines: Secret memos

Contaminants that cause cancer, neurological impairment and a host of other ailments have been found in soil around a closed federal prison in Kingston, Ontario at concentrations as high as 93 times federal guidelines, secret documents reveal. Copies of the documents, two briefing notes prepared by Corrections Canada for Public Safety Minster Steven Blaney, were obtained by Cancrime (read them in full after the jump). One briefing note, dated January 29, 2014, reported that “widespread soil contamination” was found around 179-year-old Kingston Penitentiary, which ceased to operate as a prison in September 2013. The note explains that lead, arsenic and hexavalent chromium – substances described in the note as “hazardous to human health” – were found “in exceedance of Federal and Provincial guidelines.” Corrections Canada, which will conduct an open house on the issue today (April 25) in Kingston, has revealed publicly only that areas around the prison show “preliminary evidence of possible soil contamination.” Information posted online at a website established by Corrections – the agency that manages the federal prison system – omits many details contained in the briefing notes, notably that the contaminants were found at levels far in excess of federal guidelines.

The January 29 briefing note, which was signed by Don Head, commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada, states that contamination was found in land leased to the City of Kingston for use by the public marina just west of the prison property and on land that is being considered for transfer to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. The substances were found during a preliminary environmental site assessment of land outside the prison’s perimeter wall. The briefing note states that interior areas will be assessed later:

The assessment identified widespread soil contamination that is likely due to the institution’s historic use of coal. The contaminants of particular concern are lead (identified up to 93 times the federal guideline), arsenic (identified at up to 68 times the federal guideline) and hexavalent chromium (identified up to twice the federal guideline) as they are considered hazardous to human health and were identified above the federal guidelines in the surface and shallow soil.

The information posted online by Corrections Canada makes no mention of “exceedances” of guidelines but goes on at length about the prison’s historic use of coal for heating and cooking, beginning in the 1880s until 1965:

Unfortunately, we do not yet have a clear picture of the extent of the contamination. Further testing will be done over the spring and summer of 2014 and a detailed assessment will be completed. CSC and its partners are working as quickly as possible to complete this assessment and provide the findings to the public.

While the public may have to wait for details, Minister Steven Blaney’s office already has been provided with a detailed aerial photo/graphic (see below) of the penitentiary land, indicating eight hotspots along the south and west walls where samples exceeded federal guidelines for the protection of environmental and human health. The graphic was included with the confidential January 29 briefing note. At one of the hotspots, near the northwest corner of the prison, lead exists at 93 times the federal guideline, arsenic at three times the guideline, chromium at twice the guideline, copper at 840 times the guideline, antimony at eight times the guideline and zinc at 29 times the guideline. At one of the hotspots at the south end of the property, adjoining Lake Ontario, 12 contaminants are identified. Some of the contaminated areas along the west wall of the prison are publicly accessible because the land has been leased to the neighbouring civic marina. In some areas, boats are stored on the property. The January 29 briefing note to Blaney indicates that further testing is being done.

Based on the heterogeneous nature of the soil and the limited number of samples taken as part of the preliminary assessment it is difficult at this time to draw any conclusions on the extent of the contamination as well as the potential risk the contamination poses to human health and/or the environment.

The briefing note states that Corrections will hire an environmental consultant to “determine whether or not the contamination poses unacceptable risk to human health or the environment.” The work, expected to cost $100,000 “will assist CSC with determining whether immediate corrective action is required.”

In its online posting, Corrections says “safeguarding the health of the public, staff and others is CSC’s first priority in this process. Though it is too early to determine if there are any health concerns, CSC and its partners (City of Kingston, Department of Fisheries and Oceans) will fence off the site and restrict access as a precautionary measure. This will also ensure that testing can continue with minimal disruption.”

The January 29 briefing note indicates that there could be significant disruption:

The risk assessment is anticipated to have a negative impact on the City of Kingston’s revenue-generating abilities due to the need to temporarily restrict site access while the samples are taken and results are obtained. If the site is found to pose an unacceptable risk to human health or the environment, corrective actions will likely include some or all of the following options:

• Excavation and off-site disposal of contaminated soil

• On-site remediation of contaminated soil

• Installation of an engineered cap and/or completed paving of the site

• Restriction of site access

It is expected that all of these options will significantly impact the current use of the land and could have an effect on any potential future use.

Corrections has not revealed publicly what plans it might be considering for the future of the 10-hectare penitentiary site since it was emptied of prisoners last year. Kingston Penitentiary, which opened in 1835, was the country’s oldest operating prison. It held some of the country’s most notorious sex killers and child molesters.

The prison service also has been slow to share information with Kingston-area politicians about the contamination. A second briefing note for Blaney’s office was prepared by Corrections, dated April 10, 2014, outlining plans for a “communications strategy” that includes sending “courtesy heads-up” letters to the MP and MPP for the Kingston area. Those letters, attached to the briefing note, also omitted any of the details about the “exceedances” that are described in the Jan. 29 briefing note.

The federal Treasury Board also has posted information online about the Kingston Penitentiary contamination (west wall and south wall) but the postings are devoid of any of the details provided to the minister’s office.

Corrections Canada will hold an open house/public meeting today, Friday, April 25, 2014, beginning at 6 p.m. in the media room at the Portsmouth Olympic Harbour in Kingston to discuss the contamination around Kingston Penitentiary.

Below is the graphic/aerial map showing contamination hotspots around Kingston Penitentiary. The graphic was included in the confidential January 29, 2014 briefing note to Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney (click the image for a larger version, 900K)

Below is one document that contains two briefing notes, beginning with the three-page briefing note dated January 29, 2014 that includes the graphic above, followed by the briefing note dated April 10, 2014, which includes draft letters to the MP and MPP for the Kingston area (on mobile device? Click here for doc):

A view looking south toward Lake Ontario of the west wall of Kingston Penitentiary, where hotspots of contaminated soil were found (photo by Rob Tripp)

The west wall of Kingston Penitentiary, next to a public marina, looking south toward Lake Ontario (photo by Rob Tripp)

National data needed on honour killings, panelists agree

Missed me on TVO’s program The Agenda with Steve Paiken on February 26? You can watch the entire program online (embedded after the jump). The segment, a panel discussion on honour killings, featured Deeyah Khan (inset), whose film about the honour killing in 2006 of Banaz Mahmod in England won the 2013 Emmy Award for best International Documentary. The panel also featured activist and educator Aruna Papp, a South Asian immigrant to Canada who wrote a book about her struggle against the oppressive honour and shame code to which her family subscribed, and Hafsa Lodi a freelance journalist based in London, England and Dubai, who is a former Ryerson University (Toronto) student who wrote a column about media coverage of honour killings in Canada, particularly the Shafia case.

Here’s the Agenda panel discussion on honour killings, moderated by TVO host Steve Paiken:

Lawyer sues honour killer Mohammad Shafia over trial bill

I’m not surprised that Kingston criminal lawyer David Crowe (inset) has sued convicted mass honour killer Mohammad Shafia. Crowe claims in a civil lawsuit that Shafia agreed to pay the trial legal bill of his accomplice/killer/wife Tooba and has now reneged on final payment. Crowe represented Tooba during the trial. Sources tell me that Crowe has been complaining for more than a year that he was never paid in full for his work on the trial. Maclean’s reporter Michael Friscolanti has this excellent story about the legal action. I’m not surprised, given what many people told me after I began covering the case in 2009 – that Shafia was a wealthy but incredibly stingy man who worshipped money. My book on the case, Without Honour, includes revelations you won’t find elsewhere about the depths of millionaire Shafia’s tightfistedness – such as his insistence in staying in cheap hotels and eating at discount restaurants during a lengthy business trip to China. One lawyer I spoke to who had dealings with Shafia noted that: “It’s one thing to have lots of money, but parting with it is another matter.”

When the trial ended in January 2012, Shafia, Tooba and their son Hamed were each convicted of four counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. They have appealed but the appeals have not been heard.

Here’s the Macleans’s story on the lawsuit against Shafia by lawyer David Crowe:

Mohammad Shafia—the wealthy Afghan immigrant who orchestrated the 2009 mass “honour killing” of four family members in Kingston, Ont.—is now accused of refusing to honour something else: his legal bills.

A lawyer who represented Shafia’s wife at the couple’s sensational criminal trial two years ago has filed a civil lawsuit at the same courthouse, demanding more than $143,000 in unpaid fees and interest. Obtained by Maclean’s, David Crowe’s statement of claim alleges that Shafia “agreed to pay” all legal bills incurred by his spouse and fellow killer, Tooba Mohammad Yahya, but has since reneged on that promise. His last instalment—a cheque for $20,000, nowhere near the full outstanding balance—was delivered in February 2012. “[T]he Plaintiff has repeatedly requested payment from the Defendants,” the lawsuit claims. “Notwithstanding the Plaintiff’s repeated request for payment, the Defendants have failed, refused or neglected to make any payment whatsoever on account of its indebtedness.”

Reached at his office, Crowe declined to discuss his lawsuit. “The information I have is all in the statement of claim,” he said. “I don’t have anything more than that.”

Shafia and Yahya—along with their loyal eldest son, Hamed—were convicted in January 2012 of murdering three of the couple’s “treacherous” teenage daughters (Zainab, Sahar and Geeti) along with Shafia’s first wife in their secretly polygamous clan (Rona Amir Mohammad). The jury heard, in horrific detail, how the girls’ westernized behaviour—secret boyfriends, fashionable clothes, independent thought—had so shamed their father that he believed murder was the only way to restore his tarnished honour. “May the devil s— on their graves!” Shafia famously barked, oblivious to the police wiretap recording his words.

The four victims were discovered on the morning of June 30, 2009, in a submerged Nissan Sentra at the bottom of Kingston Mills, an historic Rideau Canal lockstation. Although their killers tried to disguise the massacre as a tragic wrong turn, police quickly discovered the truth: that one family car, a Lexus SUV, was used to ram the other into the water.

It took a jury just 15 hours of deliberations to declare Shafia, Yahya and Hamed guilty of four counts each of first-degree murder. “It is difficult to conceive of a more heinous, more despicable, more honourless crime,” Justice Robert Maranger, the presiding judge, said after the verdict was announced on Jan. 29, 2012.“The apparent reasons behind these cold-blooded, shameful murders was that the four completely innocent victims offended your twisted notion of honour—a notion of honour that is founded on the domination and control of women, a notion of honour that has absolutely no place in any civilized society.”

Already a millionaire businessman when he moved his family to Canada in 2007, Shafia insists he doesn’t owe a dime to his wife’s lawyer. In a statement of defence filed from his prison cell, Shafia “denies ever making any verbal or written agreement” to cover Yahya’s bills, and that if any payment remains outstanding it should be sought from her, not him. The lawsuit “is without foundation or merit and should be dismissed with costs,” he contends.

Yahya, meanwhile, says in her own statement of defence that Crowe’s lawsuit is “excessive” and “grossly exaggerated.” In fact, she claims her former lawyer was paid more than $327,000 for his services—and that he threatened to stop representing her in the waning days of the trial if she didn’t hand over a “final payment” of $20,000. Crowe was given that $20,000 cheque, Yahya says, and she assumed her account was paid in full.

In his court filings, Crowe insists Shafia was in charge of all money matters and “at no time” did Yahya “ever become involved in any discussions about fees or retainers.” Shafia did pay some bills at the beginning of their arrangement, Crowe says, but by the end of the trial the tab owing had topped $134,000. With interest, that figure is now approaching $144,000, Crowe claims. “At no time did the Plaintiff advise that he was accepting a post-dated cheque in the amount of $20,000 in full settlement of fees,” his filing says.

On paper, at least, Shafia should have no trouble covering any bills, legal or otherwise. Within months of his arrival in Quebec, he purchased a $2-million commercial strip mall in Laval (most of it in cash) and launched a Canadian import company that dealt in clothing, household goods and construction material. He also selected the upscale suburb of Brossard to build a $900,000 mansion for his family, a home that was still under construction when he, Yahya and Hamed were led away in handcuffs. (Shortly after his conviction, Shafia sold the mall for $2.4 million.)

Whether Shafia paid his other legal costs is not clear. His lawyer during the trial, Peter Kemp, has since retired and could not be reached for comment. Hamed’s representative, Patrick McCann, is the only one who remains on the case, working with other counsel on the trio’s still-pending appeal. He did not immediately respond to an interview request from Maclean’s.

» Visit the Without Honour page for a catalogue of my coverage of the case, information about the book and photos

Killer who raped, stabbed teen gets unescorted passes

James Giff (inset), an imprisoned killer who raped and stabbed a 16-year-old girl, leaving her dying in a snowbank, has been granted permission to leave prison with no supervision. Giff, who was diagnosed as a sadist – someone who derives sexual pleasure from inflicting pain – was granted unescorted passes that will permit him to leave prison for short periods of time. The decision was made at a parole hearing held in Quebec, where Giff is serving his life sentence. He has been in prison since 1985, when he killed Heather Fraser, a popular high school student in Smiths Falls, a small community in eastern Ontario.

Giff did not know Heather. He bumped into her as she was walking home from school on a bitterly cold January evening. He forced her to a secluded spot in a park, stabbed her twice, raped her and fled. Heather crawled hundreds of feet through deep snow on her hands and knees, desperately trying to get to a nearby road. Her father, who had gone searching for his late-to-arrive-home daughter,  found her, near death, lying in the blood-stained snow. She gasped one word as her father clutched her in his arms: “Stabbed.” She was declared dead when an ambulance carrying her arrived at a hospital in a nearby community.

Giff, 17 at the time of the killing, was tried as an adult. He was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. The boy-man who has grown up in prison will now taste real, untethered freedom, 29 years after he savagely murdered Heather during what he has told me was a frenzied rage. In an interview in a Kingston, Ontario prison in 2010 – his only interview with a journalist – Giff said he was furious with his girlfriend, Annette Rogers.

Victim Heather Fraser

“It was rage, it had nothing to do with Heather,” Giff told me. The day of the murder, Giff said he was tortured by substance abuse, sleep deprivation, thoughts of abandonment and a growing rage that could not be contained. “I was up all day drinking at my aunt’s,” he said, in an interview at the minimum-security Pittsburgh Institution, a federal prison near Kingston, Ontario. “I didn’t sleep … I had some valiums.”

“They were all the makings of what they would call the perfect storm. It all came to a head this day and my rage, I was totally focused on all the negative things that had happened between me and Annette.” Giff had previously threatened to kill Rogers, who he has acknowledged abusing in the past. “That day, the rage to kill became uncontrollable,” he said, without emotion. “Annette was the intended victim. Heather Fraser was an innocent victim.”

The decision was made in November during a parole hearing in Quebec. Giff is being held at the Waseskun Healing Centre, an aboriginal facility that functions like a halfway house. It is located roughly 100 kilometres north of Montreal.

The board concluded that Giff does not present an “undue risk to society” and there is a “declining risk of recidivism” although he has offered varying accounts of his murder during his time behind bars.

The unescorted passes will permit him to attend church services in a nearby community, to attend AA meetings and he might also be permitted passes for special occasions, such as Christmas. Giff is under orders to “refrain from consuming, purchasing or possessing alcohol and drugs other that [sic] prescribed medication taken as prescribed and over the counter drugs taken as recommended by the manufacturer.” Giff also is forbidden to have any direct or indirect contact with victims, which include his former girlfriend. She appeared at the parole hearing to read an impact statement. Rogers continues to fear that Giff will harm her. After Giff stabbed Heather Fraser in 1985, he dragged Rogers to the scene, in a bizarre scheme to involve her in the crime and to terrorize her.

Although Giff has previously admitted that was aroused by violence and sex, key ingredients in his diagnosis as a sadist, experts now seem to disagree about whether Heather Fraser’s killing involved sadism. A psychiatric assessment done in March 2012 concluded Giff’s risk of committing a new sex crime was low.

He indicated that the former diagnosis of sexual sadism could no longer apply in your case … the most recent psychological assessment was produced in June 2013. It indicates a substance abuse problem resolved in a controlled environment and an antisocial personality disorder. The psychologist mentions that in light of your compliant behaviour during your long term period of incarceration, the antisocial personality disorder seems to be far less prevalent. She also agrees with the psychiatrist that the diagnosis of sexual sadism does not apply to your past behaviour.

Sexual sadists are notoriously hard to treat, making them candidates for virtually permanent imprisonment. Giff was diagnosed a sadist, in part, because Heather Fraser suffered knife wounds to her vagina. In a prison group therapy session, Giff once admitted cutting her with his knife, because she wasn’t screaming in terror as he had fantasized about. He later claimed that he was pressured into the admission.

Here is the written record of Giff’s November 2013 parole hearing:

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

» All of Cancrime’s coverage of Giff

» Video walkthrough of crime scene

» Detailed review of case, including evidence photos, statements, reports

How I learned to love the killers in my life

So maybe it’s an exaggeration to say that I learned to love the killers in my life. I certainly learned how to tolerate them, to interrogate them and to expose them, in some cases. It’s part of the story you’ll hear if you pop by the John Dutton Theatre at the main branch of the Calgary Public Library (616 Macleod Trail S.E., Calgary) this Saturday (February 1) where I’ll be speaking about life as a writer of true crime stories – which includes many tales of murder. My talk, from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m., is one of six on Saturday that is part of the Writer’s Weekend. All of the sessions are free, though you should register at the library’s website. If you attend, I’ll explain the remarkable backstory of that charming fellow (inset), one of the many strange characters I’ve met during a crime-writing career of 20+ years.

I’ll also share insight about the Shafia mass murder case, the subject of my book, Without Honour: The True Story of the Shafia Family and the Kingston Canal Murders. Copies of the book will be available for sale at the session ($19). Hope to see you there. Here’s the complete agenda for the Writer’s Weekend presentations on February 1.

Without Honour and the Taylor Prize, a group initiative

I was thrilled today to learn that Without Honour, my book about the 2009 Shafia honour killings, has been longlisted for the RBC Taylor Prize for literary non-fiction (formerly the Charles Taylor Prize). This prestigious award is given annually to a book that “combines a superb command of the English language, an elegance of style, and a subtlety of thought and perception.” It’s an honour to earn a place on a roster of gifted writers – and award events often feature great parties – though I’ll have to get on the shortlist for that. The shortlist will be announced January 15 and the winner revealed March 10. It’s humbling to see that I’m in the company of formidable literary figures, including past Taylor nominees such as personal idol Stevie Cameron, the legendary investigative journalist who was on the Taylor shortlist in 2011 for On the Farm, her definitive account of the Pickton serial murder case.

Many writers lament the solitariness of the craft – countless hours spent alone pecking at a keyboard or typewriter, and, often, untold additional hours spent scrawling on a notepad. I’m in the George Orwell camp when it comes to the emotional investment in the process: “Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness,” Orwell said. “One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.” While the process may be solitary and wearying, it isn’t singular. Writers may be alone (often) but they’re not (often) lonely. And that’s why I’d like to thank again the many people who made it possible for Without Honour to earn a Taylor Prize nomination. Foremost are folks who have bought and read the book. You honour the memories of Zainab, Sahar, Geeti and Rona by committing to explore a dark story.

My brilliant editor at HarperCollins Canada, Kate Cassaday, drove me to do better with every sentence. Daphne Hart, my agent at the Helen Heller Agency, found the perfect home for the book. Copy editor Sarah Wight was meticulous.

My number one fan and promoter is my wife, Sarah Crosbie.

And how did I find out about the Taylor longlist honour today? Did an embossed envelope arrive at my home a few days prior, carrying the news on a crisp sheet of card stock? Did I receive a congratulatory message by urgent courier? Perhaps an emissary arrived at my door, bearing the happy news? None of the preceding.

I am grateful to Pages on Kensington bookshop in my hometown of Calgary, for alerting me on Facebook this morning, with a congratulatory post on my wall. Apparently, the process is really secretive.

Here’s the complete Taylor Prize longlist announcement:

RBC Taylor Prize announces 2014 Longlist

Noreen Taylor and jurors Coral Ann Howells, James Polk, and Andrew Westoll reveal a dozen stellar works of literary non-fiction, just in time for Christmas book shopping!

1. The Juggler’s Children: A Journey in Family, Legend and the Genes that Bind Us by Carolyn Abraham (Toronto, Ontario), published by Random House Canada

2. The Massey Murder: A Maid, Her Master and the Trial that Shocked a Century by Charlotte Gray (Ottawa, Ontario), published by HarperCollins

3. Let the Eastern Bastards Freeze in the Dark: The West Versus the Rest Since Confederation by Mary Janigan (Toronto, Ontario), published by Vintage Canada

4. The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America by Thomas King (Guelph, Ontario), published by Doubleday Canada

5. The Once and Future World: Nature As it Was, As it Is, As it Could Be by J.B. MacKinnon (Vancouver, BC), published by Random House Canada

6. The War that Ended Peace: The Road to 1914 by Margaret MacMillan (Oxford, England), published by Allen Lane

7. How Architecture Works: A Humanist’s Toolkit by Witold Rybcynski (Philadelphia, PA), published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux

8. The Dogs are Eating Them Now: Our War in Afghanistan by Graeme Smith (Afghanistan), published by Knopf Canada

9. Arthur Erickson: An Architect’s Life by David Stouck (Vancouver, BC), published by Douglas & McIntyre

10. Without Honour: The True Story of the Shafia Family and the Kingston Canal Murders by Rob Tripp (Calgary, Alberta), published by HarperCollins

11. Confessions of a Fairy’s Daughter: Growing Up with a Gay Dad by Alison Wearing (Stratford, Ontario), published by Knopf Canada

12. Little Ship of Fools: 16 Rowers, 1 Improbable Boat, 7 Tumultuous Weeks on the Atlantic by Charles Wilkins (Thunder Bay, Ontario), published by Greystone Books

Serial rapist fails in flimsy claim against prison, parole officials

Imprisoned serial rapist Selva Subbiah(inset) is an outrageous manipulator, in addition to his well-established record as a pernicious predator who has exploited and assaulted women and young girls, but his latest ploy fell flat. The Federal Court rejected Subbiah’s claim of negligence and breach of privacy against Corrections Canada and the Parole Board of Canada. Though the court didn’t say it, Subbiah’s claim was a laughably transparent attempt to extort money from the government after Subbiah was stabbed in May 2009 during a dispute with other convicts at Kingston Penitentiary. Remarkably, Subbiah claimed that he was attacked because his monstrous criminal past was exposed when Cancrime posted online a copy of a December 2008 parole decision. Subbiah, who is serving a 24-year prison sentence after he was convicted of 75 crimes, including 26 sexual assaults, claimed in his Federal Court action that it constituted a breach of privacy when the Parole Board released the written record of that 2008 decision. He claimed that other inmates at Kingston Penitentiary learned the details of his criminal past because of the release, though he conceded that convicts don’t have access to the Internet. He also claimed that Corrections Canada was negligent for failing to take steps to protect him from threats. The court ruled (read full decision below also) that “there is no causal connection between the stabbing and the release of the Decision; and, (b) that there is no negligence on behalf of either the PBC or CSC.”

The claims were patently absurd, since Subbiah had been at KP for more than a decade. His criminal past as a serial predator who stalked, drugged and raped women was well known. During a hearing held over Subbiah’s claim, prison authorities explained that a television documentary that catalogues Subbiah’s abuses – described by a judge as “so disgusting and so vile that no punishment ascribed by this court would do justice to you” – was freely available to other Kingston Pen inmates on TVs in their cells. His case received substantial news coverage when he was convicted in 1992 and 1997 and again in 2002, when he was caught trying to manipulate women by telephone from prison. Newspapers are available to prisoners. Subbiah gave evidence during the Federal Court case. In the decision, the court said his testimony was “evasive” and at times he “overstated” his case. The judicial official was being kind. Subbiah claimed authorities were negligent for failing to protect him, yet he acknowledged that he didn’t ask to be segregated after he became aware of threats in the institution. There was evidence that he was involved in a scheme in which he was selling cleaning supplies to fellow convicts and he ran afoul of some of his business associates and/or customers.

The Federal Court decision is the second failure this year for Subbiah. In June, the Parole Board confirmed a detention order that is in place. It allows Corrections to keep him locked up until his sentence expires in January 2017. The board concluded that Subbiah is still too dangerous to release – an official in an high-intensity sex offender treatment program assessed him in December 2011 as a high risk to commit new violent crimes and new sex crimes.

“Program gains are reportedly minimal as you continue to demonstrate a lack of insight or remorse, present as manipulative and tend to miminize your role with certain offences,” the parole board document states.

Subbiah will be deported to his native Malaysia as soon as he is paroled or when his sentence expires. Subbiah was in medium security for a time, but he returned to the Regional Treatment Centre (inside KP) and then to Kingston Penitenitary in January 2013. Sources tell me that he was shipped to the new KP-unit created at Millhaven Institution when Kingston Penitentiary was closed in September this year.

In addition to sexual assault, Subbiah’s criminal record includes convictions for overcoming resistance by administering or attempting to administer a drug, administering a drug or noxious substance, procuring a person to become a prostitute, anal intercourse, assault with a weapon, assault causing bodily harm. Among his known victims, four were under the age of 18 and the youngest was 14. Police believe that he preyed on at least 500 women, and perhaps as many as 1,000, after he arrived in Canada in 1980, before he was first convicted in 1992. Two Toronto officers, constables Brian Thomson and Peter Duggan, were dogged in their pursuit of Subbiah.

Here’s the Federal Court Decision:

June 27, 2013 Parole Board decision confirming the detention order against Subbiah:

» Read all past coverage on Subbiah

Triple honour killer Dulay wins unescorted passes from prison

Triple killer Daljit Singh Dulay (inset), who murdered his sister, her husband and another man, in a bid to restore his traditional Indian family’s honour, has won the right to leave prison with no supervision. At a hearing this month, the Parole Board of Canada decided to give Dulay unescorted passes (full record of hearing after jump) that will permit him to leave prison for short periods. He will be able to visit family at their homes in the Lower Mainland in British Columbia, unless the Border Services Agency decides to deport him. He’s subject to a deportation order imposed in 1993 but authorities could choose not to act on it immediately. Dulay is incarcerated at a minimum-security prison in B.C.

Victims murdered in Calgary in 1991, (from left) Gurdawr Singh Dulay, Kulwinder Dulay, Mukesh Kumar Sharma

Seven years ago, a psychological assessment found that Dulay had a “shallow” understanding of his crime. Now, the board says he’s a low risk to reoffend and so he can go free, with absolutely no supervision. Early in his prison sentence, he wanted to flee Canada and get back to his family’s native India. With other inmates, he staged an escape attempt from a medium-security prison in 1996. He was quickly caught by police and shipped to a super secure prison facility where he displayed a “defiant and oppositional attitude” for some time. Parole Board records from a hearing earlier this year revealed that some members of Dulay’s strict Sikh community believed he was a hero for killing his sister. Remarkably, parole officials now appear to accept the claim of a village committee in India, the Dulay family’s home, that “they no longer espouse negative values which condoned your crime.” Dulay was considered a hero because the murders were viewed as having restored the family’s honour because his sister, Kulwinder Dulay, 20, had married a man without her father’s consent (for more on the complex history of the ancient tradition of honour killings, read my coverage of the Shafia case). Dulay also killed Gurdawr Singh Dulay, 28, and Mukesh Kumar Sharma, 28. Sharma was a close friend of the couple and their employer. Dulay told authorities, after he was imprisoned, that he was acting in conformity with his religious beliefs and would not be considered guilty of a crime in India. Dulay his sister and her husband to Calgary from his home in B.C. with the help of a private investigator. He shot the victims with a high-powered assault rifle. He was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and one count of second-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.

To read the record of Dulay’s previous parole hearing, and for more background on the case, read this previous post.

Here’s the written record of the parole board hearing that was held November 5, 2013: