Canadian crime news

[Michael Newton]

4'9" WOMAN CAN'T KEEP BOXER EX AWAY
July 8, 2000 Victim floored by violence decision
By KATHLEEN HARRIS -- Ottawa Sun

Brenda is a tiny 85 pounds, 4-foot-9 and frightened. For years, she was
beaten, bitten, punched and kicked by her partner, a boxer who stands a
sturdy 5-foot-11 and weighs about 230. Brenda is tired of running, but she
is still fighting for the right to feel safe.
The 31-year-old mother of three wears dentures to fill the gaping
holes where her front teeth used to be. They were knocked out by
her ex's violent hands. Surgeons have rebuilt the delicate bones on her
nose and cheekbones, smashed in another of his beatings.

Her former partner has a string of assault convictions for these
violent attacks, which were coming daily by the end of their
eight-year relationship. Despite his record, Brenda still can't make him
stay away. "I look over my shoulder everywhere I go," she says. Twice,
she has tried to obtain a peace bond, which would order him to keep his
distance and give police the authority to arrest if he breaches the rules.
In April, Brenda applied for a hearing after he showed up at her home. She
had called police, but he had left by the time officers arrived.

STUNNED BY RULING

She was turned down by a justice of the peace who reasoned the
violent offender had "done his time" and had not made an overt
threat of violence that day. Brenda tried to get a peace bond again in late
June -- this time armed with a social worker, a lawyer and a
strongly-worded letter from the Children's Aid Society pleading her case.
Again, she was denied and referred back to police.
"I feel cheated," she says. "Their excuse is that he hasn't bothered me for
months. But he'll be back. I know he will."

Donna Blackburn, who is with the John Howard Society's support
program for domestic abuse victims, was stunned her client wasn't
even able to get a hearing for the peace bond. Isn't the idea supposed to
be to prevent violence, she wondered? "Why can't she present her case, and
he can defend himself if he objects to it?" Blackburn says. The incident
highlights a dangerous problem with a system that doesn't seem to
understand domestic violence, she says.

Staff Sgt. Sterling Hartley, who heads the regional police partner
assault section, learned of Brenda's case this week and says
improved communications between police and justices of the peace
might help these situations in future. Hartley promptly responded by
designing a form letter, which can be filled out by officers called to a
domestic disturbance. Even without enough evidence to lay a criminal
charge, he hopes the letter will strengthen a victim's case before a JP.
But there are still flaws in the system, he admits. The peace bond can take
weeks because of hearings, and once it's granted, it is only in effect for
one year.

HIGH TOLERANCE

But Joyce Durette-Rai, co-chair of the Regional Co-ordinating
Committee to End Violence Against Women, says the problem is
more widespread. She blames a pervasive attitude that perceives
complainants as "hysterical" and "overreacting" -- as well as
society's high tolerance for domestic abuse. "They still don't give these
women the credence they deserve -- they're just ushered away," she says.
"We're still waiting for the crime to occur, instead of preventing it from
occurring." Sometimes women are refused peace bonds simply because of a
time gap since the last attack. Durette-Rai says the application process is
confusing and without specific guidelines, leaving a decision up to the
discretion of a JP. Eileen Morrow, co-ordinator of the Ontario Association
of Interval and Transition Houses, agrees the system is failing abused
women by missing the boat on prevention. She believes showing a pattern of
violence -- especially when
there is a solid criminal record -- should be reasonable grounds for
granting a bond. "The right to life, liberty and personal safety is not
just some frivolous ideology dreamed up by someone. It is every woman's
right," she says.

But it's not Brenda's right -- yet. She still lives in fear of her former
partner's violent temper -- and when it will return. "He's never going to
stop. I'll bet my life on it," she says.

Murder-suicides occur almost weekly in Canada: Statscan
TIMOTHY APPLEBY
The Globe and Mail
Saturday, July 8, 2000

Rarely does a murder-suicide claim as many victims as Thursday's tragedy in
Kitchener, when four small children and their parents
died. But neither is murder-suicide unusual. Over the past decade, Canada
has seen an average of almost one such incident per week, almost invariably
involving people who knew each other well.
The deaths yesterday in the Southern Ontario city come on the heels of two
high-profile slayings, and one attempted homicide, in
which the perpetrators committed suicide. The most recent was near Kelowna,
B.C., over a week ago, when a family of three died
of stab wounds and battering. Last month, a mother of three in Pickering,
Ont., was shot dead by her estranged husband, who then turned the gun on
himself. Days later, another Toronto-area man killed himself with a rifle
after wounding his wife with a shot to the face.

In 1998, there were 38 murder-suicides in Canada, down from 50 a year
earlier. The number peaked at 58 in 1992, as did homicides that year with a
record 732 incidents of murder and manslaughter.

On average, there were at least 45 murder-suicides per year from 1988 to
1997, Statistics Canada data shows.

**********
P4W
July 08 2000
Suburban scene hides realities of prison life
Editors Note: Kingston Whig Standard reporters
Jennifer Pritchett and Sharon Lindores investigated the state
of women's corrections as the Prison for Women closed its
doors this spring. For 66 years, P4W in Kingston was Canada's only prison
for women. Our series of stories and pictures depicting life in the
institution concludes in today's paper with a look at
the future of women's corrections, and in the Companion, readers will take
a tour behind the concrete walls of P4W, an institution that was once
condemned as "unfit for bears."

Bonnie Nash makes coffee in her kitchen where the window overlooks a scenic
stretch of trees and condo-type houses arranged like a cul-de-sac. The
scene could be in any suburb, but Nash isn't allowed to borrow sugar from
her neighbours and she's not permitted to visit them. Those are the rules
at the regional women's prison in Kitchener where Nash, a former inmate at
Prison for Women, is serving the rest of her 14-year sentence for two armed
robberies.
Although the view from her window is pretty, she says, "it only looks good
on the surface."

NEIGHBOURHOOD OF INMATES

Her neighbourhood is made up of 90 inmates, many of whom are doing hard
time for crimes like assault and murder. Some of these women were once,
like Nash, classed for maximum security and housed at P4W, the 66-year-old
prison in Kingston that Corrections Canada closed May 8. Prisoners at Grand
Valley wonder whether the new facility they say was built just for "show
and tell" is actually the healing place Corrections Canada touted it to be.

Even inmates transferred from the dismal environment at P4W want to leave
the comfortable houses at Grand Valley and go back to the dark cells they
called home for years. Debbie Dupuis, a lifer who's serving time for murder
at Grand Valley, has lived at both institutions. She says the old prison
offered more programming when it was running at full capacity. "There's
nothing to do here [except] wash floors and cut grass," she says. "At
Prison for Women the vocational training available was phenomenal. It had a
big woodworking shop where you could learn how to make tables and chairs,
carpentry, offset printing, sewing"

Other inmates complain there aren't enough employees to devote adequate
attention to some acute problems at Grand Valley.
Veronica Brown, who's serving a 12-year sentence for armed robbery, says
many of these conflicts are a direct result of putting women with all sorts
of convictions in a house together. "They are not evaluated properly," she
says. "They are put into houses with
people and then all they do is keep bouncing them and shipping them to
another house." Some women have been in four houses in a month, she says,
"so not everybody can live in that structure."

RIOT IN THE WORKS

Inmates say a riot like the one at P4W in 1994 may be in the works if these
conflicts continue to be ignored. That uprising saw prisoners attacking
guards, throwing urine and setting fires
during a four-day revolt that led to a male riot squad strip-searching
eight inmates. Inmate Debbie Harpell sees something like that happening at
Grand Valley within a year, but she says it would be worse because there is
less structure at the regional prison than there was at P4W. "You're still
living with the same
kind of people that left P4W," she said. "You can make the institution
look as nice as you want. It doesn't mean you're
safe."

Kim Pate of the Elizabeth Fry Societies, isn't surprised to hear about
these problems. She says the federal government built five new women's
regional prisons in the mid-1990s, but it has done little more than provide
the "bricks and mortar" to address women's needs. "The reality is that the
resources aren't there for staff and programs to provide more supervision
[for those inmates who require it]," she says, "but it's pay now or pay
later - people will end up coming back for two or three years."

Grand Valley and the four other regional prisons - located in Nova Scotia,
Quebec, Saskatchewan and Alberta - were built after a federal task force in
1990 wrote a report, Creating Choices, which directed Corrections Services
Canada to close P4W. The report made its recommendations on the premise
that people respond to a
positive environment and a sensitive program that respects and empowers
them. The changes across the country are estimated to have cost the
taxpayer about $80 million. To promote rehabilitation at Grand Valley, its
administration and programs building, as well as its nine houses - an
additional two are still under construction - are designed to look less
like a traditional prison and more like
the real world, where women have responsibilities such as cooking and doing
their own laundry.

Inmates there live in condo-style houses where eight to 10 women have their
own rooms and share kitchen, living and bathroom facilities. There is a
chief cook and a part-time cook in each house. Security is discreet and the
guards don't wear uniforms, making it virtually impossible to tell the
difference between inmates and staff. While in theory the environment
sounds positive, the reality at Grand Valley is that frustrations about
programming and staff are the main topic of conversation among inmates. As
a result, the atmosphere isn't conducive to the "healing" that was supposed
to be so much a part of the revamped women's prison system.

Marion Evans, an assistant warden in Kitchener, says there is a lot of
truth in what the inmates are saying, adding there are real shortages in
resources for programming and staff. "I'm not at all disputing what they
say," she says. "There are days when I
would love to have more staff."

Other shortcomings at Grand Valley, she adds, relate to inadequate
programming for women who are serving long sentences. Typically, these
inmates soon take all the available courses - which encompass areas like
education, living skills, substance abuse and surviving abuse and trauma -
and are left with nothing to do. "It is possible that they can do all the
programming in two years, so if they're
doing a long sentence, it's hard to keep them busy," Evans says.
"We do our best and we still have a ways to go. We're not perfect, but when
you look at prisons in other countries, these women don't have it that
bad." ?????????

In Ontario, women who receive sentences longer than two years serve their
time at Grand Valley. Maximum-security inmates who are now living in
segregated units in men's prisons will also move there when secure units
are completed, by September 2001.

The recent addition of a new group of inmates from P4W who were
ill-prepared for life at a new facility seems to have heightened the stress
level around the well-manicured Grand Valley institution. Women from P4W -
where there were 80 staff and only seven inmates - have "been
institutionalized," "rely heavily on staff" and aren't yet accustomed to
the independent living at Grand Valley, says Evans.

"There is a marked difference between women who have recently come to Grand
Valley and those who have spent a lot of time at Prison for Women." She
points out there were more resources for psychology at P4W where inmates
could see a psychologist, essentially, whenever they wanted. At Grand
Valley, she maintains, the approach is supposed to be more like the real
world where people have to make appointments to see health care
professionals.

Inmates are still adjusting to these and other differences between the two
institutions. Pate, of Elizabeth Fry, says these adjustment problems could
have been eased had a transitional period been provided for the inmates
leaving the highly structured environment at P4W. "The reality is, of
course, that very little of that happened and too many women went to the
regional prisons ill-equipped," she says.

The tensions related to programming and staff shortages at Grand Valley
indicate more work will need to be done to improve the regional prisons
long after the closing of P4W. The neighbourhood settings at the regional
prisons, adds Pate, must be accompanied by enough resources to provide
inmates with the support and
supervision they require to make the new brand of women's corrections work.
Otherwise, the prisons will be just facilities that look uncomfortably like
condominium complexes and provide little new in terms of rehabilitation for
women.

Companion: The ghosts of P4W
Sharon Lindores Kingston Whig Standard July 08 2000

From the outside, the Prison for Women looks the same as it has for 66
years. There are 10 concrete stairs to climb to get to the main entrance.
You press a buzzer to get in. The big door slams shut behind you. Once you
get past the guard in the wire cage, through the metal detector and through
security doors, you can see the
woman who put an end to the Prison for Women.

Lori MacDonald, the deputy warden, looks relaxed and satisfied. Now, all of
the inmates are gone. Mission accomplished.
"It's just a building," she says. "There's no personality now."
Will she miss it? "No." Wandering through the 10,166 sq. metre labyrinth
of rusting bars, locked barriers, stairways and corridors, there are still
traces of life, glimpses of how women struggled to live under the domed
roof. During the past few years,
most of the women lived on A range, which has 45 cells, 23 on the main
level, 22 on the upper level, and on B range, which has 26 cells on two
levels. The cells are painted muted shades of green, blue and pink. The
average open-barred cell is 1.7 metres across and 2.7 metres deep, so small
you can hardly move around in it
without bumping into things.

A metal framed bed with a thin, striped mattress fills half
of the cell, even though it's smaller and more narrow than
a conventional twin bed. The cell bars are at one end of the
bed and the small, white ceramic toilet is at the other end. Next to the
toilet is a tall, metal cupboard and right next to that is a small sink. A
three-drawer metal dresser, across from the bed, is the only other piece of
furniture. There's a bookshelf attached
to the wall above the dresser with a swivel shelf for a TV.
Underneath the bed is a metal foot locker where inmates could store
important papers and belongings. Above the bed is a bulletin board, the
only place inmates could put pictures. Turning around from using the sink
you have to be careful not to walk into the TV shelf and standing up from
pulling out the foot locker you have to be
careful not to bang into the book shelf.

The grim, little cells were called cages and you can see why, sitting
inside one. There are 26 paint-chipped white vertical bars across the cell
crossed by eight horizontal bars. Walking is restricted to about three or
four steps lengthwise and one across.

Five times a day, inmates would be locked in their cells for a count. From
11 p.m. to 7 a.m. they were locked in for the night.
"If it was full, the range was very noisy," MacDonald says.
"Imagine 50 TVs and stereos, plus normal conversation, showers and
movement. " The 10-metre high ceilings amplified the noise from the
two levels of open-barred cement and metal cells. Most of the inmates
smoked in their cells, too, creating a haze when the sun filtered in. At
the end of the range hall there are two cell bathrooms on each level. The
tiled rooms have tubs with showers and
old laundry-like sinks. A curtain would cover about half of the open-barred
cell, but the barred door had to be left uncovered.

There are tall, barred windows along the range, a couple of
chairs and a couple of phones, where inmates could call approved numbers.
(The phones were added at the end of the 1980s, when inmates were limited
to one phone call per month.)

The women were supposed to go to work or programs from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30
p.m. They would have free time, usually from 3:30 p.m. till 11 p.m.
Half-hour meal breaks were taken in the cafeteria, which
looks much like a small, hospital cafeteria. When they had free time they
could go to the common area, just off the range, where women could practise
hairdressing on each other in the mini beauty area - complete with a sink
and parlour dryer - or they could
do their laundry, make Kraft Dinner, popcorn and snacks in the kitchen
area, or crash on a bunch of old couches to watch TV.
Day in and day out, 365 days a year, for years and years, that's how
hundreds of women existed in P4W. Many never even went outside.

"It's eerie to walk through the corridors and now empty cells and to
remember all of the women there over the years," says Karlene Faith, a
criminology professor at Simon Fraser University, who toured the prison
right after it closed. "It's a very strange experience to feel the ghosts
of women who have died there."

The dingy, dusty old building is home to loads of ghost stories.

Marlene Moore, whom the government attempted to have designated a
dangerous offender, was only 30 when her body was found half hanging from
the frame of her bed in the prison hospital. That was in 1988. It never was
clear if it was murder or suicide. It seems like every room is plagued with
suffering and death. The day after
Moore's body was found there was a stabbing in the billiard room.

"There [was] a higher than usual incidence of suicide at P4W," says Ron
Fairley, a Corrections spokesman, though no clear records tallying the
number of deaths exists.

Between 1988 and March of 1991 there were five suicides, many of them
involving native women. In addition, there was a suicide attempt that left
a woman alive, but in a coma and there was a suicide in a downtown Kingston
park of a woman released from P4W just two months earlier.

"One of the issues raised was the despair of loss of connection to ones
roots, " says Fairley. Because the prison was, until a few years ago, the
only place in the country for women serving federal sentences, many women
didn't see family or friends for the duration of their stay - sometimes
more than 20 years. Kingston was
simply too far away from their homes.

Not only were inmates cut off from personal ties, but often also from their
culture and language, too, and no place epitomized that isolation like
segregation. It was one place no one wanted to go.

Ironically the cavernous area, near the basement, is one of the newer
places in the prison, built just five years ago. Each of the 10 cell doors
weighs more than the women they were designed to keep inside. No one gets
through 135 kilograms of solid concrete.

There's graffiti on the walls and some smeared feces, too. No one wants to
clean the seg, so a lot of dirt remains, even though the last time it was
used was in April.

Cell 101 has leather straps on the bed and an ominous-looking silver hook
on the wall at the end of the bed. Inmates, probably brought in screaming
by armed riot squads wearing masks, could be strapped down to the
self-restraint bed and handcuffed to the wall. Guards kept a black hockey
helmet with a mask, for women who constantly banged their heads on the cell
walls, or tried to bite.

The other nine segregation cells are no more inviting. The heavy blue cell
doors each have a narrow window and a food slot, which guards could unlock
to deliver meals, to speak with the inmate, or to put handcuffs on her.
Inside, the 2 by 2.8-metre cells feel even more claustrophobic than the
range cells, despite the absence of furniture.

There are three shelves, two big enough to hold a TV. The toilet-sink-unit
is one stainless steel contraption. Instead of a toilet tank behind the
seatless toilet, there's a small sink. Women would line the cold toilet
rims with sanitary pads, to add a bit of comfort. You can imagine the
stench in a confined cell with virtually no ventilation. There's a camera
in the corner by the ceiling so guards can see everything inside the cell.
The narrow mattress covered in a plastic fire retardant material sits on a
strip of metal attached to the wall. Women spent about 22 hours a day
locked in these cells that are about four footsteps long. They were allowed
to go in a small, fenced yard, about the size of a single car garage, for
an hour, and they were allowed to have a shower in the morning. There are
two shower stalls, each with a hole cut out of the middle of the door, so
inmates could get locked in the shower, before sticking their hands out of
the door to have their handcuffs removed.

One can only imagine what segregation was like when tormented, angry women
were there. There's one more celled area, the Special Needs Unit, where the
segregation cells used to be. This is where women who are mentally
challenged, low-functioning, or rejected by the general prison population -
for the heinous nature of crimes they committed - ended up. One such woman
was Karla Homolka, who was at P4W between July 1993, and June 1997.

In a place that killed many spirits, Allison Turcotte, chief of
institutional services, tried to keep souls alive. Decorated with handmade
gifts from inmates - Cabbage Patch-like dolls, a
crocheted teddy bear, a ceramic cat, drawings, paintings and dream-catchers
- her office is the most homey looking area in the prison.
Her bulletin board is covered with photos of inmates. As a civilian,
Turcotte garnered more respect than guards. Four of the last seven inmates
were working for her in the laundry area.

Despite at least 20 loads of wash a day, it was a good gig. The
institutional laundry had to be delivered to the various areas in the
prison, so there was a bit of freedom. "I had an open-door policy," says
the motherly woman with light, strawberry-blond hair. "Sometimes they just
wanted someone to listen." No fool, Turcotte kept many things like cleaning
supplies, new jeans and T-shirts under lock and key. "Things tend to have
little hands and feet," she says, noting she had to fire anyone caught
stealing.

For the most part inmates are good workers, she says. "A lot of women
wanted to do manual, physical labour." They got paid between $5.25 and
$6.90 a day, working five days a week. "They're interesting. I just like
working with women, because being a woman,
you can relate to them. We're all human. I'll miss the inmates," she says,
noting sometimes they write to her, or send Christmas cards after they
leave, but due to Corrections' rules she can never
write back.

When Turcotte leaves for her next position she plans to take all her little
trinkets and gifts with her. "I'm a pack-rat," she explains with a smile.
"I'm going to miss the old place. I really liked it. I'll miss all the
activity."

Even Turcotte couldn't defeat a building like this. While tens of millions
of dollars have been spent on Kingston Penitentiary, across King Street,
during the past few years, not much has been done in P4W. Why invest in
something you plan to close?

Those plans escalated after Friday, April 22, 1994. That evening six
inmates attacked four guards, tried to take a guard hostage and steal the
institution's keys. The incident was only a few minutes long, but the
ramifications were resounding. The women were thrown in segregation. By
Sunday tension had mounted and three other inmates already in segregation
were slashing themselves and
attempting suicide.

In the middle of the night Tuesday a male riot squad strip-searched eight
of the inmates in segregation. Afterwards the women were left in empty
cells wearing paper gowns, in restraints and leg irons.
On Wednesday night seven of the inmates had body cavity searches in
exchange for the removal of restraints, a shower and a cigarette.
They remained in segregation for months, some until December, others until
January.

Madame Justice Louise Arbour, who is now a justice of the Supreme Court of
Canada, began an inquiry into the events in April 1995. She concluded the
prison service broke the law in the treatment of the women. In her report
she wrote that Corrections Canada had "a deplorable defensive culture. Too
often, the approach was to deny error, defend against criticism, and to
react without a proper investigation of the truth."

By the time her report was released in 1996, women had already started
going to the new regional institutions. The number of women at P4W began to
decrease, so, it seems, did the activities. With not enough women for good
softball games or bingos, there
wasn't much to do to pass the time. Sometimes inmates would play badminton
in the dust-filled gym. If the ceramics teacher was in, they could make
plates, napkin holders, pigs on motorcycles.

A couple of the women used the small library, where books such as Dead Man
Walking, by Sister Helen Prejean, Hell's Angels, by Hunter S. Thompson and
Harlequin Romances like Duel of Passion, line the shelves. The green yard
with a scattering of white picnic tables between the tennis courts and the
softball field was largely unused. Perhaps the nicest places at P4W are
also here. Two fenced-in houses, one grey and one beige, for longer-term
family visits, sit, like they were plucked from suburbia, in the middle of
the yard. They're carpeted and furnished like an average home, complete
with a barbecue. But even this oasis is haunted.

It was in the basement of the older, beige house in 1990 that Marie Helen
Ledouxe, 27, hanged herself while her father, visiting from Edmonton, slept
upstairs.

A place of isolation, despair and anguish, to many the prison is wretched.
Now it is home only to the pigeons who squawk endlessly outside the
building. It will take a few months for everything - the soup kettles, the
dentist chair, the beds, the handcuffs, the books and the papers - to be
packed and moved. Plans call for the building to be mothballed and counted
as excess until Corrections decides what to do with it. According to the
1996 assessment, the most recent one available, it's worth about $6.8
million.

"For me it just needs to close," says MacDonald, the deputy warden.
"It's an era that needs to end."

WOMEN IN PRISON:
- 295 women are in federal custody, 41 are considered to be
maximum-security
- 11,779 men are in federal custody, 1,589 are considered to be
maximum-security
- it costs about $113,610 a year to keep a woman in federal custody,
$59,661 to keep a man in federal custody
- 86 per cent of women serving time in federal custody are serving their
first federal sentence
- 10 per cent have one previous sentence
- three per cent have had two
- one per cent have had more than three
- 28 per cent are serving sentences for first- or second-degree murder
- 52 per cent are serving sentences for crimes involving violence, assault,
attempted murder
- 12 per cent are serving sentences for fraud, theft
- eight per cent are serving sentences for drugs

**********
ABUSED WOMEN'S SHELTER FLOODED WITH CALLS
Abused women's shelter flooded with crisis calls
Murder-suicide of Kitchener family triggers fear among those seeking safety
By Liz Monteiro
Torstar News Service

KITCHENER - The night after six members of the Luft family were found dead
in their Kitchener home, the local shelter for abused women was swamped
with calls. Staff at the shelter dealt with five crisis calls on Thursday
night from desperate women who feel they and their children could be killed
by their husbands, said
executive director Manuela Almeida. On an average night, Anselma House
staff take just one crisis call. One of the callers specifically mentioned
the Luft family, Almeida said yesterday.
Their deaths were the result of a murder-suicide, police said.
In addition to the fallout from the six deaths, women at the shelter were
frightened Thursday night after three men banged on the fence near the
facility's courtyard. Women and their children often sit in the area,
equipped with picnic tables and toys.
A man reportedly yelled, ``You b----, you ruined my life and I'm going to
get you.'' `This situation puts their reality in their
face that they too could be killed'

Police were called but were unable to find the men. Almeida said many of
the women were anxious yesterday. Some were crying and
afraid to stay within the protected walls of the shelter.
``These women are fearful. A lot of them are saying they want to pack their
bags and leave,'' she said. ``No matter how many cameras and security
measures I have here, it's happening here, too.''
At the Women's Crisis Services of Cambridge and North Dumfries, women are
also preoccupied with this week's Kitchener deaths.
``The fear levels have gone up,'' said Melanie Miller-Cassel, volunteer
co-ordinator. Many women are choosing to remain inside the 18-bed shelter,
though the numbers of telephone calls has not increased, she said. Almeida
said calls to her shelter's crisis lines have more than doubled. On
Thursday, 15 women called - including the five overnight - compared to a
daily average of six.
Staff have been working around the clock, consoling many of the women at
the shelter who are in a panic, she said. ``These women are saying they
need to get out now. They need to leave,'' she said. ``This situation (the
slayings) puts their reality in their face that they too could be killed.''
Almeida says she is concerned the issue of family violence is not taken
seriously by society, despite ongoing cases of domestic trouble.

Government cutbacks in 1995 reduced the shelter's budget by almost 27 per
cent, cutting support and public education programs.
``It's so discouraging,'' she said. ``We will spend millions of dollars on
an inquest after the fact.'' Almeida said the 20-bed shelter is constantly
full and currently has 24 women and children staying there. ``I had someone
staying at a motel, but I had to move them in here because her partner
threatened her,'' she said.
``It's like being on the run and looking over your shoulder. You live like
this and sleep like this.'' Most disturbing is the cycle of abuse that
continues from one generation to the next.

Almeida said many of the young women who come to the shelter with their
children were once at Anselma House with their mothers, while some of the
male abusers were at the shelters as little boys escaping fathers.

********
OTTAWA PSYCHIATRIST PALFRAMAN: MURDERS SUICIDE KITCHENER
Mass killing 'a twisted act of love'
Depression can cause people to think murder
is merciful, says psychiatrist
Christopher Guly
The Ottawa Citizen July 08 2000

Thursday's apparent murder-suicide that left two adults and four young
children dead in Kitchener may have been the result of a "twisted act of
mercy, caring or love," according to a psychiatrist at the Children's
Hospital of Eastern Ontario in Ottawa. Dr. David Palframan says that when
people suffer from "extremely intense"
depression, they "develop a kind of grandiose misery, feel an elevated
sense of personal responsibility for what has happened, and almost in a
delusional way feel that there can be no possible end to the misery they're
feeling."

Anyone experiencing such a delusion resulting from a permanent state of
depression may believe the "only possible exit from the
misery is to end life," explains Dr. Palframan, who studies depression.
"And if, from the depressed person's sick perspective, life is endlessly
painful, then the people that they love the most should also, in a merciful
way, have their lives ended too. So it makes a curious sick kind of sense
for them to bring everyone whom they care about with them so that some form
of peace can be reached."

On Thursday, the bodies of Bill and Bohumila Luft and their three sons and
one daughter, ranging in age from the eldest, a seven-year-old boy, to a
toddler born two-and-a-half months ago with a minor form of the spinal
birth defect, spina bifida, were discovered inside a Kitchener duplex.
Neighbours and friends of the family told the media the Lufts had been
experiencing financial problems and that the father had once undergone a
psychiatric evaluation.

The Kitchener-Waterloo Regional Police are considering the crime a multiple
homicide but they say they're not pursuing any suspects. Still, they would
not discuss the cause of death or whether a weapon had been seized. The
mother is believed to have been stabbed to death, while conflicting reports
emerging from the scene suggested the children had either had their throats
slit as they slept or were shot by a rifle found near their father's corpse.

If indeed Mr. Luft was responsible for the horrific carnage, he may not
have been just expressing "a pathological form of love" for his wife and
children, says Dr. Palframan. The man may have also had a "sense of
personal ownership and control of the people around him, which is not
healthy."

When deeply depressed and distressed people feel a sense of grandiosity,
they "don't see themselves as just autonomous human beings but as rather
having an elevated degree of control over other people in the family and an
elevated sense of responsibility," Dr. Palframan explains. The Kitchener
tragedy may have also resulted from a "sense of hopelessness," according to
Tim Simboli, a research psychologist and executive director of the Family
Service Centre of Ottawa-Carleton, a counselling agency.
You get to the point where in some twisted kind of way the whole thing
makes some sense to the person who does it. The part that's really hard for
a lot of people to grasp, even those of us that work in the field, is that
on some level this seemed like a reasonable thing to do. It may have been
based on voices, hallucinations -- but what leads to that is an incredible
amount of stress that goes onto the person along with the vulnerability in
the person. The two things combine and it is like nitroglycerine -- you
apply the heat and just have something explosive that
comes along as a result of that."

Dr. Palframan says that based on information collected either from notes
people leave behind or on a reconstruction of the thought process from
someone who failed at an attempted murder-suicide, incidents like the one
in Kitchener always involve "a parent."
But typically, there are few warning signs to prevent someone from carrying
out such extreme and fatal acts of violence, he says.
"People who are depressed try to be very brave usually and not share their
despair with the rest of the world because they feel ashamed of what's
going on," explains Dr. Palframan. "Sometimes when they have made a
decision to end everything, they're
particularly careful to act in a normal way so that no one could possibly
foresee what's going to occur. They may do something almost celebratory
near the end of their life -- prepare a special last meal, display some
gesture of peace or serenity like giving away objects important to them and
appear to people around them to have relaxed or have their mood actually
lighten a little bit.
From their point of view, their problems are over because they're going to
end their life. They have come to terms with their fate. It seems
inevitable and necessary."

Unfortunately, predicting the kind of outcome that occurred in Kitchener on
Thursday is "extremely difficult," says Dr. Palframan.
"The people who have these problems do want to keep things within their own
powers, they don't want interference from outside. They plan things
sometimes very meticulously and they're careful not to drop any hints.
There are often clear-cut signs that things are difficult and strained in
the family, but they're not about to let anybody interfere with their final
plans."

Thursday's mass slaughter in southwestern Ontario is the latest incident in
what has become a spate of murder-suicides occurring across Canada. Last
week, it's believed a British Columbia man killed his young daughter and
wife before taking his own life. Last month, a man in Pickering killed his
estranged wife before killing himself. But such tragic events "are
fortunately rare," explains Dr. Palframan. "We hope more and more rare
because more people are learning that depression is an illness that has a
pretty definitive treatment available for it."

However, he explains that therapy becomes challenging when a depressed
person is also experiencing a sense of grandiosity and an "exaggerated
personal responsibility," eliciting the notion the individual should be
able to "handle everything" him or herself.
"They're too conscientious, they don't reach out for help," explains Dr.
Palframan. "When they get into trouble, they have to find their own
solution. They cannot turn to other people."

July 8, 2000
Descending into madness
'Strange, anxious' Luft checked into psych ward in April
By THANE BURNETT and ROB GRANATSTEIN --
Toronto Sun

KITCHENER -- Months before killing his wife and four children
and then turning a rifle on himself, an "anxious" and "strange" Bill Luft
was admitted to a psychiatric hospital.Yesterday, Coroner Dr. Jim Cairns
blamed Luft for the family's massacre. "We're looking at a murder-suicide,"
Cairns said of Luft, who stabbed his wife to death before killing his four
children late Wednesday or early Thursday. Cairns said autopsies will be
conducted today in Hamilton on the couple's four children: David, 2 1/2
months, Peter, 2, Nicole, 5, and Daniel, 7. It's believed the children were
shot
to death. Autopsies completed yesterday showed Bohumila Luft, 27, died of
stab wounds. Luft, 42, died of a self-inflicted gun-shot wound. Cairns said
an inquest is a possibility.

"There are all sorts of issues we need to start and look at," he said. "But
we'll wait until the investigation has concluded before deciding on an
inquest." Luft was investigated in April after social workers at London
Health Sciences Centre contacted the Family and Children's Services of
Waterloo Region over his "strange" and "anxious" behaviour following the
birth of son David, who had spina bifida. But the investigation ended when
Luft admitted himself to hospital for psychiatric treatment.

Medical staff at Grand River Hospital and London Health Sciences Centre
indicated Luft's bi-polar condition (popularly known as manic-depression)
seemed to have improved significantly after hospitalization.

The Lufts were also visited by child protection workers months
before the murders, a family services official said yesterday.
But a thorough investigation by the Perth County agency didn't
find any reason for taking the children into care, said Stephen
Chandler, CAS executive director. In the fall of 1999, when the Lufts lived
in the village of Sebringville, about 8 km west of Stratford, a concerned
neighbour contacted Child and Family Services. The neighbour was worried
because the children were not in school, the family was alone with no
support, the parents had
difficulty speaking English and they were living in sub-standard
housing with little furniture. "We investigated and, if I remember
correctly, the family had a number of difficulties," Chandler said.

"The family was relatively new to our country, and there was
some feeling that they were (socially) isolated. We met with the
family, talked to the school about the need for assistance with
curriculum, and put the family in contact with some other
services."

The agency last dealt with the ill-fated family last December as
they moved to Kitchener. "I think they were having difficulties with
housing," said Chandler. The family file, he said, indicated Luft had some
"emotional problems," but was taking lithium, used to control the dramatic
mood swings that characterize bi-polar disorders.

CONCERN ABOUT WEAPONS

"When we did our investigation, we did it jointly with police
because there was a concern about the use of weapons," he said.
"In our investigation, there were no weapons in the house, except
maybe a BB gun or pellet gun."

Child-protection workers talked to the mother on her own, away from the
family, and according to the file Bohumila didn't express any worries or
alarm. "She did identify that (Luft) had mood swings, but that since he was
taking his medication he was much better, and she had a better
understanding (of his illness)," Chandler said.
The file indicates they were "home schooling" the kids. After the
Lufts moved to Kitchener, several neighbours wondered why
Daniel, 7, wasn't in school. But the Lufts told neighbours they
were educating the kids at home.

After Thursday's gruesome discovery, Peter Ringrose, executive
director of family services, said the Waterloo agency checked the
files again and found records of investigations by family and
children's services organizations in both Perth and Huron counties.

"The family is just devastated," said Luft's sister-in-law Cathy
Anthony. "I just can't explain the devastation they're going through right
now." She said her husband -- Bill's brother -- is in shock. Close family
friend Victor Mallish noted: "Losing one is bad. Losing six is worst."

Waterloo Staff Sgt. Brent Thomlison said Luft's parents, who live
in a mobile home in the driveway of the Mooregate Cres. duplex,
were questioned as witnesses Thursday night. "(Luft) was not aggressive. He
was just angry at everyone," family friend Nora Hrazdilkova said. "But she
loved him and never seemed afraid of him." Nora said Luft always thought
people were trying to take
advantage of him -- stealing ideas. She would occasionally avoid
talking to him, she said, "because I knew it would lead to an
argument." "But his wife, she put up with it. Even came back to him after
leaving him, then getting married to another man in
Czechoslovakia." -- With files from Sun Media, CP

July 8, 2000 Disturbing flood of violent fantasy
By HEATHER BIRD
Toronto Sun

So we're back in the place where Ralph Hadley put us. Only this time, it's
Bill Luft who has ushered us to the spot where men turn their families into
ghosts. But unlike Hadley, who reserved us a front-row seat to the slaying
of his wife, Luft kept it all in the family. He preferred to wait behind
closed doors until sometime after twilight but before dawn to turn on his
wife and helpless children. It's hard to decide which is worse, knowing or
not knowing. Gillian Hadley gave a face and voice to domestic victims of
the ages when her naked flight to the front lawn telegraphed her
desperation. Her death was made all the more awful by the knowledge
that she almost escaped.

By contrast, practically nothing is known about what transpired in the Luft
household. How did they die? In what order? Were they all sleeping? Or was
the babe awake? Did it occur in hot or cold blood? That is, did he kill his
wife in a fit of passion and then, agonized by his act, systematically
slaughter the children, then himself? Or did he plot the murders in their
entirety, then carry them out? There seems to be a concerted attempt on the
part of various agencies -- the police, the courts, the Children's Aid
Society -- to withhold the details of this particular crime. It is a
dangerous and ignorant thing to do. If we are ever going to come to terms
with domestic violence, we need all the help and information we can get.

There is no doubt many clues were contained in the thick court file on the
Lufts. Those pages were a public document until 4 p.m. on Thursday, when a
judge, acting without an application and seemingly without due process,
suddenly slapped the dossier shut. The Ralph Hadleys and the Bill Lufts of
the world have coaxed a disturbing male element out of hiding. These are
the men who, for some reason, will publicly admit to wanting to commit the
same vile acts. The surprise isn't learning that some men feel this way; it
comes
in discovering that there are so many of them.

In last week's column, I wrote about a man who expressed a deep desire to
kill his wife Diane and then himself. This drew an observation from Peter,
who mused in an e-mail: "Beautiful, Heather. I couldn't have said it better
myself." He signed it, "In the same boat."

Then there was Roger from Sudbury, who said it was a "tragedy" that a major
element was missing from the reportage on the Gillian Hadley murder. "Why
is everyone drawing conclusions and making assumptions that Mrs. Hadley
played a totally innocent role of a victim without knowing the facts?" The
truth, he claims, is that the vast majority of restraining orders are mere
tools used by "violent, abusive and mentally ill women" seeking to separate
men from their children.

Or how about Tony, who responded that sometimes it really is "all the
bitch's fault." He recently left a turbulent relationship but laments the
fact that people can't seem to see past his own violent acts. "What needs
to be told now is the depth of women's rage. It's brutal, it's gross, ugly,
filthy, scary. I would rather end up in a man's gutter than women's. They
go further."

Then there's this missive from Andrej, who wanted to pay "homage to Ralph
Hadley" and say "thanks" from another who has been there.
He says journalists like me are "pea-brained dinosaurs" who are happy
dabbling in symptoms, not causes. "By the way," he concludes, "I wouldn't
kill 'her.' I'd beat her to a pulp, cripple her for life and let her watch
as I kill her child. Oh my God! This has shocked you! What's the problem?
You have no qualms about sending in the Gestapo to take kids away from the
fathers! Why should it bother you when the father takes the kid from a
mother? A brainwashed child is as good as dead."

Finally, as for those of you who wrote and telephoned to express concern
about the safety of Diane, you should know the police were able to warn
her. Acting on the orders of Deputy Chief Mike Boyd, officers talked to her
ex-husband, who happily told them that, indeed, he wants to kill her but
won't act on the urge. They then
contacted her on Sunday night. She was stunned. She said he had never hit
her or threatened her. And that she had no idea he had been actively
contemplating her murder. She did, however, have one piece of information
which the police considered vital to their
threat assessment. Diane says that about two weeks ago, out of the blue,
her ex had made a trip to a shooting range.

Heather can be e-mailed at hb...@sunpub.com or visit her home
page.
Letters to the editor should be sent to edi...@sunpub.com.

*********
KARL TOFT VICTIM: "HELL IS TODAY"
Saturday, July 8, 2000
Man upset abuser could be released into community
By DAVIS SHEREMATA, EDMONTON SUN

Edmontonian Mark McGinnis spent yesterday torn between whether he should
kill convicted pedophile Karl Toft or kill himself.
The 32-year-old McGinnis claims he was molested as a teenager
by Toft at a New Brunswick reform school. McGinnis was enraged yesterday
when he read in The Sun that Toft had applied for release into the
community and hoped to move to the Kingsway area. "If I ever bumped into
him ... I'm not threatening, but what would
people expect me to do? Walk by the man who did this to me?"
said McGinnis, who sued Toft after cops refused to press charges
because Toft was being prosecuted already.

TURNED TO DESPAIR

McGinnis couldn't believe his eyes when he read Toft is still
attracted to young boys and had scouted Kingsway Garden Mall
one morning on a pass from Alberta Hospital to make sure there
were no children there to tempt him. "I'm tempted to start hanging around
Kingsway Garden Mall right now," McGinnis said. "If he gets out and I meet
him, it's going to be a very bad day for him."
McGinnis's anger turned to despair and suicidal thoughts.
"If he gets out, I'll kill myself," he said in tears. "I don't believe in
religion. Heaven is when you die. Hell is today."

But then, thinking of his children, McGinnis changed his mind and
decided to do whatever he can within the law to keep Toft behind
bars. He plans to attend Toft's parole hearing next month so the
board has living proof of what he said Toft's abuse has done.
"He's a sick man and there's no cure for him," McGinnis said. "I'd
like to tell Toft to stop putting people through this, to just sit in jail
until he dies and give people some closure."

In 1992, Toft was sentenced to 13 years in prison for sexually
assaulting dozens of boys in his care at a New Brunswick reform
school. He was paroled last year to receive treatment in Alberta
Hospital's Phoenix program for sexual offenders.

On Thursday, Toft was refused release when a two-person parole
board couldn't agree if he should be let out. Toft estimates he molested
150 or more boys. Another hearing for Toft will be held here on August 2 or
3. Although McGinnis plans to be there, he hoped he'd never see Toft again
after the night he says Toft snuck into his unit at the Kingsclear Youth
Training Centre and fondled him. McGinnis was 16 at the time. McGinnis said
Toft stopped touching him when he saw the boy wasn't aroused, then
threatened to make life in the school a living hell if he told anyone.
McGinnis has been in a living hell anyway - he says he's spent his adult
life miserable, drunk and on welfare. "I thought I was gay for a long
time. I always wanted to prove I was a man. I abused my women physically,
mentally, sexually so I could fulfill what was missing inside me."

'TOO OLD'

When McGinnis moved to Edmonton late in 1984, he figured he'd
left Toft behind. But last year he saw on the evening news that
Toft was being treated at Alberta Hospital.

"I called the police and a cop said, 'You're too old for him. He likes
little boys.' I said, 'You're right,' and I was able to sleep that night.
But not now - not when he might get out."

McGinnis said he called New Brunswick RCMP in 1996, but cops said they had
already prosecuted Toft for abuses against more than 20 boys and weren't
taking more complaints.

**********
BC TEACHER'S TEEN VICTIM CHARGED - SEXUAL INTERFERENCE
B.C. teacher's teen lover admits sexual misconduct
DARAH HANSEN July 08 2000

SECHELT, B.C. (cp) - The teenaged lover of B.C. teacher Heather Ingram
pleaded guilty this week to sexual interference. The teen, whose name
cannot be revealed, has been in the news after his sensational affair with
Ingram became public and Ingram was sentenced to 10 months of house arrest
for sexually exploiting him. They now live together. The 18-year-old landed
in the newspapers - and the courts - again on Tuesday after admitting he
picked up a 13-year-old girl who had been hitchhiking last October. Police
in Sechelt found him partially clothed and "making out" in a parked
car with the girl. In a written statement to the court this week, the teen
said he didn't know the girl's age but honestly believed she was older
than 13, "both by reputation and by appearance."
"I have learned to endure the public humiliation of having this charge
described in the newspaper and the stress this has caused my family has
been huge," he wrote. "I have a strong family and a relationship that is
very important to me. I would very much appreciate the chance to get on
with the rest of my life."

The make-out session with the girl in the parked car was described to the
court as completely consensual. The teen had just turned 18 and was
therefore legally an adult when he was caught with the girl. Under the law,
a teen under the age of 14 years cannot give consent to have sex or engage
in sexual touching with anyone over the age of 18 years. The teen had
originally been charged with sexual assault, but pleaded guilty to the
lesser offence. He was given a conditional discharge with one year's
probation. That means
if he completes the year without further trouble, he will not have a
criminal record for the offence. Ingram quit her teaching job in November,
1999. She now works for an environmental organization in Gibsons. Her teen
lover plans on attending the Justice Institute in Vancouver to become a
fire fighter.

**********
C EDWARDS SLAUGHTERED TEEN GIRLS
July 8, 2000 Two knifemen killed teens, expert says
By GRETCHEN DRUMMIE -- Toronto Sun

A Florida crime scene expert who testified yesterday for the
defence in the Carol Edwards murder trial said it's "more likely"
more than one killer slaughtered two teen victims. But Dr. Joshua Perper
admitted he has also said in a report "it is possible the crime was
committed by one killer with two knives, or at least two killers."

Edwards, 35, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of first-degree
murder in the April 3, 1998, deaths of Isha Cleverdon, 16, and
Cheri Doucette, 15, in a Champagne Dr. lot. Both had slashed
throats. Edwards testified he has amnesia about that night, though he
admits he was at the grisly scene. Perper said his analysis "indicated
there were two knives involved" in the slayings. He said it would be
difficult for one person to control two women, slice off their clothing
which was found in piles six feet apart, and murder them. He also noted the
presence of DNA, which didn't come from Edwards.

Accused killer attracted to adolescents, trial told
By Tracy Huffman
Staff Reporter Toronto Sytar

The man accused of killing two teenagers has a sexual preference for
adolescent girls, according to a sexual behaviour assessment conducted by
one of Canada's most prominent psychiatrists.
Other tests conducted by psychiatrist John Bradford and his team of
specialists at the Royal Ottawa Hospital conclude Carol Edwards may have
been trying to skew his results, court was told Thursday.
''He showed an age and sexual erotic particular preference for adolescent
females which was substantially higher than any other sexual preference,''
Bradford's report states. ''This is an abnormal finding compared to what
you would expect with the
average man,'' he said.

While under cross examination by prosecutor Frank Armstrong yesterday,
Bradford said the term adolescent females refers to girls age 14 to 18.
Bradford explained to the jury that adult men usually show preference for
adult women.

Edwards, 35, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of first-degree murder in
the April, 1998, slayings of Cheri Doucette, 15, and Isha Cleverdon, 16.
The former welder and rap singer becomes aroused by coercive sex, Bradford
said. People with sexual deviations can live in a community without anyone
knowing about the deviation, he said.
Also in Bradford's report of his 60-day assessment of Edwards are results
and conclusions from psychological, memory and behavioural tests.

On one memory test, Edwards - who claims he is suffering from memory loss
and has no recollection of the night Doucette and Cleverdon were killed -
scored 30 out of 50. ''Isn't the test designed so that even brain damaged
people can get a score of
47 out of 50?'' Armstrong asked. ''Yes,'' Bradford responded.
''When you see a score of 30 out of 50, you know someone is severely
faking,'' Armstrong suggested. ''Yes,'' Bradford said.
The tests indicated that Edwards is not psychotic and has no organic brain
damage.

In his testimony earlier in the trial, Edwards said he has suffered from
blackouts since an industrial accident more than a year before the murders.
Bradford found Edwards shows ''evidence of symptom magnification . . .
This means Mr. Edwards is, at the very least, unreliable,'' he said. The
accused killer's reporting of his health problems is ''an essential feature
of malingering, a gross exaggeration . . . motivated by external
incentives,'' court
heard.

Edwards admitted he lied to Bradford during his assessment. He said he made
up a story about where he was the night the teens were killed when asked
about it by Bradford. The naked bodies of Doucette and Cleverdon were found
behind a warehouse on Champagne Dr., in the Dufferin-Finch area. Their
throats had been slashed and their bodies bore other wounds. Edwards' DNA
was found in the mouth of one teen, and DNA from both murder victims was
found in and on Edwards' car. DNA from an unknown male was also found on
the young women and the accused's shirt. It did not match Edwards' DNA.
The trial continues.

Two knives used in murders, trial told
By Tracy Huffman
Staff Reporter Toronto Star

More than one knife was used to kill teens Cheri Doucette and Isha
Cleverdon, a forensic pathologist testified Friday. That made it more
likely there were two killers rather than one, Dr. Joshua
Perper said. But under cross-examination, Perper agreed the murders could
have been committed by one killer with two knives. ''Is it more likely or
not . . . that one person acted alone, using a knife for a weapon, could
confine, strip and murder these girls?'' defence lawyer George Carter asked
Perper at the murder trial of Carol Edwards. ''It's less likely,'' Perper
responded.

Perper, who specializes in crime-scene analysis in Florida, testified after
reviewing autopsies of the two teens, visiting the site of the slayings and
viewing photographs taken at the scene.
While looking at pictures of the young women's stab wounds, Perper told the
jury he believes Doucette was stabbed with a serrated knife, Cleverdon with
a sharp knife. ''There were two knives involved,'' Perper testified. ''The
wound (on one victim) is consistent with a knife other than the knife that
was in the photograph,'' Perper said, referring to a picture of a knife
found at the scene covered with the blood of both teens. ...
Perper agreed with Carter's suggestion that if Edwards had killed the girls
there would have been more blood on the shirt, pants and shoes he was
wearing that night. A small amount of blood was found on the shirt, but
Perper said he would expect to find blood on the front of the pants as
well. The trial continues Tuesday with closing arguments.

*******
CORNWALL MAN MISSING
July 8, 2000 Cornwall cops hunt for missing man
By Staff Writer -- Ottawa Sun

Cornwall police have joined the search for a 30-year-old Chelsea,
Que., man missing for more than a month. Police are asking for the public's
help in finding Troy Edgell, who dropped a family member in Cornwall on
June 4 at 5 p.m. and hasn't been seen since. The next day at 11 a.m. Edgell
spoke to a friend on the telephone and said he was heading to Smiths Falls.
He is 5-foot-8, weighs 140 pounds, has brown hair and blue eyes, a birth
mark below his left ear and a tattoo of a panther on his left arm. Anyone
with information on his whereabouts can contact Det. Const. Marc Bissonette
at (613) 932-2110 ext. 2422.

*******
JOHANNESSON ACQUITTED MURDER STEPSON
Saturday, July 8, 2000 Aquittal ends 'four years of hell'
By TONY BLAIS, Edmonton Sun

A relieved Fox Creek man says he has been vindicated after an
Edmonton judge yesterday acquitted him of manslaughter in the
death of his 16-month-old stepson. "It was like a big boulder was lifted
off of my chest," said Troy Charles Johannesson, 31, shortly after Court of
Queen's Bench Justice Ernest Marshall found him not guilty of Justin
Lavelle's Oct. 21, 1996, death. The long-distance trucker said he has gone
through nearly four years of hell because the allegation caused his
family's name to be dragged through the mud and resulted in his getting
death threats in custody.

Melissa Johannesson, who is Justin's natural mother, said she and
Troy were married in March and she just wants to pick up the
pieces of their life and put this behind them. "In my heart I always knew
Troy wasn't capable of this," said Melissa. "As far as I'm concerned, this
whole thing was stupid. Now we can get on with our life and that poor boy
can finally rest in peace." Lavelle died in Edmonton's University hospital
on Oct. 21, 1996, as a result of a brain injury. The toddler had been
airlifted here from the hospital in Fox Creek, about 260 km northwest of
Edmonton, on Oct. 15, 1996. Court heard that Lavelle was playing in the
bathtub that day and Johannesson had been washing clothes nearby when he
heard a
bang in the bathroom and ran in to discover the boy lying
unconscious on his side in the tub. Johannesson removed him from the
bathtub and called Melissa. But when the baby had a seizure and wasn't
breathing properly, Johannesson thought he was dying and shook him in a
panic attempt to revive him. After doctors diagnosed Justin with shaken
baby syndrome, police charged Johannesson with second-degree murder. A
judge later ordered him to stand trial on the lesser charge. Marshall said
medical evidence given at the trial was not consistent. Some doctors
testified that Justin's brain injury could have been caused by hitting his
head on the tub, and others said there was more than one injury and
possible signs of shaken baby syndrome. The judge also cited character
testimony.
"I am satisfied he did not assault Justin," said Marshall.

*********
APPEAL RESULTS IN LONGER PRISON SENTENCE
Saturday, July 8, 2000 Appeal results in long prison term
By TONY BLAIS, Edmonton Sun

A Grande Prairie man was handed a 12 1/2-year prison term on
appeal yesterday for kidnapping a terrified bank manager's wife
and demanding a $65,000 ransom. Ironically, the sentence imposed on Trevor
Scott Stojan by Edmonton Court of Queen's Bench Justice Sterling Sanderman
was higher than the 10 years given to him when he was convicted of the same
charges in 1996. Sanderman cited a court decision from the 1700s which
declared that "a man's home is his castle" at the sentencing hearing. On
June 16, an Edmonton jury convicted Stojan, 26, of kidnapping, extortion,
robbery, unlawful use of a firearm, break and enter with intent and being
disguised for the Sept. 15, 1995, kidnapping of Shirley Lukey.
Court heard that Shirley and her husband Steve, who was then a
Bank of Nova Scotia manager in Grande Prairie, which is about
400 km northwest of Edmonton, were accosted inside their home
by two armed, masked men. Steve agreed to get some money from the bank
vault to free his wife and got about $65,000 in cash and dropped it off
underneath a bridge. The kidnappers never turned up and Shirley was
released unharmed. Steve Lukey said he was glad the trial is over, but
added the family will be anxiously waiting a 30-day appeal period. "I don't
think I am a vengeful person," said Lukey. "I was just looking for the
next step in the closure process."

*********
LOCKDOWN KINGSTON PENITENTIARY: DEATHS, DESTRUCTION
Saturday, July 8, 2000 Lockdown in Kingston
By CP
KINGSTON, Ont. -- The Kingston Penitentiary was in lockdown
yesterday after a night of death, violence and destruction.
Prison officials said there were three violent incidents at the
maximum-security facility within six hours, starting at about 6 p.m. on
Thursday when two prisoners attacked a third inmate in the
prison yard. The inmate, who wasn't identified, was recovering yesterday
from a non-life threatening stab wound as officials tried to find out the
names of the attackers. About four hours later, an inmate was found
unconscious in his cell, said Tim Jamieson, an assistant warden at the
prison. James Hilton, 31, who was serving a 40-month sentence for robbery
and mischief convictions, later died in hospital of an apparent overdose.
Then, at about midnight, two inmates refused to go into their cells and
began smashing windows, ceiling fans and light fixtures, Jamieson said.
Tear gas and negotiations eventually convinced the men to surrender their
homemade weapons and enter segregation cells. The penitentiary was locked
down as guards searched cells and police began an investigation into all
three incidents.

Death, vandalism, stabbing stain KP
Rob Tripp Kingston Whig Standard July 08 2000

For the second time in 11 days, a spate of violence erupted at a federal
prison in Kingston, fuelled in part by drugs. James Hilton, 31, an inmate
at maximum-security Kingston Penitentiary, died
late Thursday night of a suspected drug overdose. Last Monday, suspected
drug overdoses killed a 37-year-old prisoner at
Joyceville Institution and sent another to hospital. Hilton's death and two
other incidents occurred at Kingston Pen in a span of
five hours, leaving one inmate in a prison hospital recovering from stab
wounds and four others in isolation cells, awaiting punishment.

UNRESPONSIVE

Hilton was found unresponsive in his cell at 10:25 p.m. and was rushed to
hospital, where he was declared dead on arrival. Authorities don't know
what drug might be involved. "That will be determined through the autopsy
and toxicology tests," said Tim
Jamieson, an assistant warden at KP. He said Hilton's cell was searched
thoroughly. "As far as I know, there was nothing specifically identified in
his cell," Jamieson said. Hilton was transferred from a federal assessment
unit at another prison to
Kingston Penitentiary on March 7. He was serving a 40-month sentence for
robbery and mischief convictions in 1999 in Toronto.

Authorities don't know if the suspected overdoses at KP and Joyceville are
linked. "There's been no connection that we're aware of," Jamieson said.
Police and Corrections are investigating the possibility that the
Joyceville drug incidents are the result of inmates taking lethal
quantities of morphine, The Whig-Standard has learned. Joyceville staff
claim prison managers have allowed rampant drug use there to go unchecked.
Jamieson said there's no information to suggest any of the three incidents
at Kingston Pen were related.

CRUDE WEAPONS

At 11 p.m., two convicts on a cellblock refused staff orders to return to
their cells. The pair, armed with crude weapons - a broken broom handle and
a metal rod - began smashing light fixtures, windows and ceiling fans on
the cellblock. "It's suspected they were under the influence of an
intoxicant," Jamieson said, although the substance has not been identified.
Prison guards fired three canisters of tear gas, but the unruly convicts
refused
to follow orders. A prison riot squad was assembled but did not have to
storm the cellblock, after a senior officer talked the pair into
surrendering peacefully. They were hauled off to isolation cells.

Another violent incident at Kingston Pen happened at 6 p.m. Thursday, when
staff saw two prisoners attack a third convict in an outdoor recreation
yard. The injured inmate, who has not been identified, was taken to
Kingston General Hospital for treatment of stab wounds. He then returned to
a regional prison hospital inside the Kingston Pen compound. The two
suspected attackers were taken to a segregation unit. Staff scoured two
units at the prison yesterday that include roughly 80 cells, looking for
hidden drugs, alcohol and weapons. Jamieson said he did not know what was
found.
Normal operations were expected to resume at Kingston Pen today.

********* BLACK & BLUE & SS TOO **********

# WINNIPEG COP JENEFER DAS KICKED OFF POLICE FORCE
July 8, 2000 Cop kicked off force for 'breach of trust'
By GREG Di CRESCE -- Winnipeg Sun

Jenefer Das is about to start shopping her resume around. The former
Winnipeg constable was kicked off the force yesterday because she allowed
her estranged husband into a "secure area" four years ago. Das said he took
a gym bag with 25 CDs. The police service said she took them, triggering a
criminal investigation and subsequent court case. Last year, a court
acquitted the District 6 officer of stealing the discs. However, the
force's internal investigation, which was released yesterday, deemed Das
did "breach a trust." Because of that, she was dismissed immediately from
the force.

'I'M IN TOTAL SHOCK'

"I'm in total shock," Das said yesterday. "It felt like it was a witch hunt
from the beginning and when you look at the severe ruling by the arbitrator
it's hard to think otherwise."

Das, 27, who racked up almost five years' service with the force,
said fellow officers "hung her out to dry." But she didn't blame them.
"They were frightened into not speaking out, afraid of being
disciplined internally. Nobody wants to hurt their career," Das
said. Another factor, she said, was Chief Jack Ewatski's desire to see any
officer with a criminal conviction turn in their badge.
"Sure, I wasn't convicted, but I feel they were using me to set an
example."

Carl Shier, president of the Winnipeg Police Association, doesn't quite see
it that way. "It's been a long four years for her. But she's not the only
person who has had to leave the service," he said. Still, Shier said, even
the 96-page decision admitted the ruling was unduly severe for such a minor
offence. "And that is certainly how we feel. But before any action is taken
by the association our board will have to review the decision on
Monday," he said. A stoic Das, who is currently a volunteer with needy
people, isn't expecting anything to change. "Of course I hope I can return
to policing, but I see where this is all going," she said, noting she's
already thinking about a new job. I'm not about to let the department ruin
my life." Ewatski was unavailable for comment.