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.

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