Lisa Neve puts 'dangerous offender' days behind her
Jason...@virgin.net
'THOUGHT I'D DIE IN JAIL'
Lisa Neve puts 'dangerous offender' days behind her
By LINDA SLOBODIAN -- Calgary Sun
little fellow toddles right up to Lisa Neve, tugs at her jacket, then
just stares at her smiling.
The surprised Neve looks down, then gently talks to the child who
obviously doesn't think this woman waiting in line at Robin's Donuts is
a monster.
What a coincidence -- neither did the Alberta Court of Appeal. It just
took the panel of judges a lot longer to arrive at the same conclusion.
In November 1994, to the delight of some and amazement of others, Neve,
then a 21-year-old prostitute, was declared a dangerous offender. She
was only the second woman is Canada to be labelled so.
Despair drove the first one, Marlene Moore, to commit suicide in prison
in 1988.
Attached to the label is an indefinite stay in prison.
"It was like I was on death row for all those years. I thought I was
never getting out. I was sure I was going to die in jail," says Neve,
27.
It's not like she didn't try to hurry that process up. Long sleeves
hide the evidence of Neve's despair during her stint in Saskatoon's
Regional Psychiatric Centre (RPC).
"I slashed 34 times in eight months. I was so unhappy. They'd stitch me
up but leave razor blades with me. We had glass light bulbs, I'd break
those and use them too," she says.
The only thing she's cut in the past year is her hair, which still
falls halfway down her back.
But RPC wasn't the "lowest point" in her life. The dangerous offender
hearing was.
"I felt like less than a human being, a monster, unredeemable," says
Neve, who from the age of 15 got herself 22 convictions.
She was jailed in May 1993 for robbery, aggravated assault, uttering
threats and failing to comply with a court order. Her release date would
have been September 1997 had she not been declared a dangerous offender.
At the time, presiding Edmonton Justice Alec Murray said she was a
woman with "evil, violent and sadistic thoughts, utterances and
actions."
The appeal court described her quite differently -- as "a young woman
with a relatively short criminal record for violence, disposed to
telling shocking tales."
Her most violent crime is slashing the back of a woman's neck with an
exacto knife. The "utterance" that likely sealed her fate was a remark
she made to a psychiatrist at Alberta Hospital about wanting to do away
with the darling of Edmonton's justice system -- then lawyer Sterling
Sanderman, now a Court of Queen's Bench justice.
Neve shakes her head.
"Believe me, I'll never say I want to kill anybody, no matter how mad I
am," she says.
"All they had on me was a vice file when I threatened him. I didn't
mean it. He was Richard's lawyer."
Richard Jacobson was her pimp, a pimp that beat her mercilessly. At the
age of 18, she bravely testified against him.
"I'd been on the streets since I was 12. I thought I was going to
change my life. All he got was 18 months for living off the avails,"
says Neve who recalls being very angry at the justice system "that let
me down."
Meanwhile, as Neve stayed in jail long past the time she should have
served, the Court of Appeal took 17 months to review Murray's decision,
deem it riddled with errors, and rule she wasn't so dangerous after all.
Some would view the time she served in limbo as a miscarriage of
justice. Neve's just happy to be free. She pulls out her statutory
release form that says she's off parole Nov. 17. "I carry it
everywhere," says Neve, as though she needs it for reassurance that she
really is out of jail.
The call came Canada Day. Neve was at the Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge, a
federal minimum-security prison in Maple Creek, Sask. It was Edmonton
defence lawyer Brian Beresh.
The assistant warden who took the call looked at Neve with tears and
said "it's over."
Two days later, her family arrived to take her home to Calgary.
Freedom was, still is, "overwhelming," she says.
"I didn't have any preparation for the world," says Neve, who spent 6
1/2 years in cells in various jails.
She's still battling heavy depression. There's some fear of making it.
The adjustment to freedom is a struggle. But learning to do "normal"
things she's never done -- wash dishes, do laundry -- is a joy.
"Living at home again, it's great, wonderful -- safe," she says.
"I got taken away by social services when I was 12. I got caught
drinking at school. My parents fought to get me home but social services
said I was out of control. I was."
She ran from the facility in which she was placed -- and into the arms
of the streets.
After her release in July, for the first month she was afraid to sleep
alone.
"I slept with my mom and Mr. Bear," she says -- laughing at my shock
that Mr. Bear managed to survive the insanity she has put him through.
She's had him since she was 10, a gift from mom and dad (Colleen and
Jim).
Fat, white Mr. Bear was in her purse, like he was every night she
worked the streets, when I first met her in a grungy bar on Edmonton's
drag 10 years ago. She'd popped in to warm up from working the freezing
streets.
These days, the former prostitute who had an insatiable appetite for
drugs and alcohol, still needs a fix -- but hot chocolate and a Player's
light suffice nicely.
She's gone to one session of a Living Skills program at Peter Lougheed
Hospital. And Neve reports to a "great" parole officer and to members of
the Calgary Police High Risk Offenders Program.
"Cathy (Det. Light) and Gary (Const. Uren) are excellent, they're so
great to me," says Neve who was nervous about first going to see them.
She heard the comments made by Edmonton city police when her release
was announced. Though the court deemed her not dangerous, spokesman Sgt.
Bryan Boulanger declared EPS might issue a public warning if she
returned.
"I'd like to show people I've changed. I feel like I finally woke up,
have control of my life for the first time," she says.
While in jail, she received hundreds of letters from Christians
Canada-wide.
"It made me wonder why people cared about me. I sure didn't care about
myself at the time. The best influence is my mom and dad. They showed me
what real love is all about, brought me home. When people fight for you
so much, you want to fight for yourself."
Looking back, Neve says the dangerous offender status "was the best
thing that ever happened" to her.
"I learned a lot -- like how to fight for my life, to appreciate
family. I don't regret the dangerous offender hearing. Everything had a
purpose and a time. Without it, I'd be dead like Bunny."
Bunny, Elaina Ross, worked the streets with Neve. She was the first to
leap in to help when danger in the form of a bad date or vicious pimp
came their way. She was found dead under a bed in an Edmonton motel. Her
killer has never been found.
Neve says she can't remember a lot of the painful stuff on the streets.
"It's too overwhelming. God crosses things out for you."
Another good thing the dangerous offender status brought was the six
months at Okimaw Ohci. Neve was trusted with caring for little ones --
Haley, the newborn and two three-year-olds Tian and Justin -- belonging
to inmates at the healing lodge's day care.
Her long-term dream is to work with kids. Her desire now is to work.
She's not optimistic.
"I'd love to have a job. But, with my history, who would hire me?"
Sadly, she might be right.