A career criminal who narrowly escaped the hangman for cold bloodedly killing two Moncton police officers has died after more than 36 years behind bars. James Hutchison (inset), 83, died Saturday evening at maximum-security Kingston Penitentiary, in Kingston, Ontario. Corrections Canada notified Hutchison’s sister, who lives in the Toronto area, but has not given a cause or exact time of death, said criminologist Matthew Yeager, who had been helping the ailing murderer in a desperate last-ditch bid for freedom.
Craig Munro (inset), an imprisoned killer and former heroin addict who murdered a Toronto police officer during a botched robbery, wants to be become a yoga teacher. The Parole Board of Canada has indulged his strange career plans, agreeing to continue to allow Munro a series of passes that permit him to roam free from prison. Munro, who is behind bars in British Columbia, appeared recently before the board, which noted (full decision after jump) that he seems “over confident and somewhat naive relative to the challenges” he’ll face when he’s free from prison.
The death of a Toronto police officer today, 
A double cop killer has been denied parole after a hearing in which he was “evasive,” “condescending” and “sarcastic,” a document obtained by Cancrime shows. Richard Ambrose, who murdered two Moncton, New Brunswick police officers – along with accomplice James Hutchison – in 1974, appeared this month before two members of the National Parole Board at a hearing held in Alberta, where he’s serving a life sentence in prison. Ambrose and Hutchison killed Cpl. Aurele Bourgeois and Const. Michael O’Leary in a horrifying slaying that earned them a trip to the gallows. They were spared the death penalty when capital punishment was abolished in Canada in 1976.
A judge has ordered Corrections Canada to move an ailing, geriatric double cop killer to a minimum-security Ontario prison with no fences and no armed guards so he can be closer to his sister. James Hutchison (inset), 82, went to court because Corrections denied his transfer to 
Imprisoned cop killer Laurie Ann Bell (inset), who was caught consorting with a male prison guard the last time she was free on early release from prison, is getting another shot at freedom. This time, not surprisingly, she’s being ordered to report all “intimate relationships and friendships” to her parole supervisor, with whom she has to make contact at least four times a month. An internal parole document (available after the jump) sets out all the conditions, including the requirement that she stay at a halfway house.
