Criminal defence lawyers Michael Edelson (inset) and his partner Vince Clifford took extraordinary precautions in the handling of the sensational sex-murder case of Russell Williams. I had a chance to interview the veteran Ottawa lawyers (full audio after the jump) who defended Williams, the former airbase commander who pleaded guilty to raping and murdering two women. The revelations from the lawyers form the core of this feature story that I wrote for Canadian Lawyer magazine.
Serial child killer Clifford Olson’s claim – if you can believe it – that he won’t seek parole again, is a relief to the families of his victims. On her Facebook page dedicated to her murdered sister, Brigitte Kozma wrote that she prays he’ll be true to his word – her sister, Judy Kozma (inset) was 14 when she was slain by Olson. “It kills us every time,” he appears for parole, Brigitte wrote, summing up the feelings of the small army of shattered families who have never really recovered from Olson’s lethal, eight-month rampage in British Columbia that began in 1980. Olson was denied parole for the second time (full document after the jump) at a hearing inside a Quebec prison on November 30.
The moment that many families across Canada dread has a date – November 30. That day has been set for a parole hearing for infamous serial child killer Clifford Olson, who is serving 11 concurrent life sentences in a federal penitentiary in Quebec. This will be Olson’s second parole hearing, if it goes ahead, since he was arrested in 1981. I received a notice from the Parole Board of Canada, explaining that so many reporters and others have applied to attend Olson’s hearing, that some will have to watch it on closed-circuit television in a room separate from the hearing room where Olson faces the board members.
Fifteen years ago today, frantic preparations were underway inside Canada’s oldest and most notorious federal penitentiary. Bosses at Kingston Penitentiary were readying for the arrival of a convicted sex slayer who would immediately rise to the top of the Bighouse’s roll call of infamy. Paul Bernardo (inset) was transferred to Kingston Pen on November 8, 1995, roughly two months after he was convicted of torturing, raping and murdering teenagers Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French. He was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years and also was declared a dangerous offender. On the day Bernardo arrived in Kingston, the warden issued a stern warning in an internal memo (available after the jump) to staff at the 160-year-old prison to show attention “to Mr. Bernardo’s mental health and his safety.”
Paroled thief Bill MacNeill – free from prison just a few weeks – seems to have enough to worry about; finding a job, transportation, medical care. Now a 13-year-old nightmare has come back to haunt him. “Holy shit,” he said, as he pored over a newspaper story Thursday afternoon, while sitting at a steel table in the kitchen of a grimy basement Kingston apartment that he shares with two other men.
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There are as many reasons for fellow convicts at Kingston Penitentiary to want to befriend sex slayer Russell Williams as there are to kill him. While that sounds remarkably contradictory, you have to consider that his world is now ruled by the bizarre, nearly incomprehensible culture of a maximum-security penitentiary teeming with miscreants, misfits, and mentally deranged predators. Williams is a predator – now infused with the bright glow of infamy – and if he wants to stay alive in prison, he has plenty of skills that might even endear him to some fellow cons.
Serial sex killer Russell Williams was moved Thursday into a segregation cell equipped with a closed-circuit camera in an isolation unit inside maximum-security Kingston Penitentiary in Kingston, Ontario, Cancrime learned. The former Trenton airbase commander convicted of two murders was placed in a cell in what is known as the prison’s dissociation unit, a segregation facility usually reserved for convicts who are being punished or who have been involved in prison violence. Williams was whisked directly to Kingston Pen from a courthouse in Belleville, after his nearly week-long sentencing hearing was completed. The direct transfer is unusual.
The Canadian military, no doubt feeling the heat as the lurid details of Russell Williams’ murders continue to ooze from a courtroom in Belleville, Ontario, reiterated that it’s powerless to strip Williams of his rich military pension and it cannot also prosecute him under military law. National Defence says (full statement after jump) it’s moving as quickly as possible to recover salary he’s been paid since his arrest and, cryptically, DND says, it will take “other measures to be determined.”
Russell Williams, the murderous former airforce commander who killed two women and who sexually assaulted two others will soon be subject to the sometimes incomprehensible rules that govern federal prisons and parole in Canada. In a courtroom in Belleville today he pleaded guilty to 86 crimes including the murders of Jessica Lloyd and Cpl. Marie-France Comeau. The lurid details of his deviant spree of fetish break-ins that culminated in torture and murder began to unspool in court, along with the release of bizarre photos taken by Williams himself. He will be automatically sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. His life sentence means exactly that – he’s subject to scrutiny for the rest of his life, even if he is one day freed from prison. But you might not believe just how soon he’s eligible to seek freedom.
Several news organizations are liveblogging the court appearance today of Col. Russell Williams, the former Canadian airbase commander who plans to plead guilty to murdering two women, sexually assaulting two others and committing 82 fetish-related break-ins. Click here for the Globe and Mail’s liveblog and here for CBC’s liveblog. The court proceedings begin at 10 a.m. eastern time. Click here for past coverage of the case on Cancrime, including details of Williams’ failed suicide attempt inside a provincial holding centre.
Video of the Shafia family, who have since been convicted of murdering four family members, as they arrived in court in October 2010, when their case was at the pre-trial motion stage. (click image above to play video)
Managers at medium-security Joyceville penitentiary in Kingston, Ontario, bowed to a long list of inmate demands, including giving back control of spaces in the volatile prison where a race riot last year left one inmate near death (click image above to read the internal memo obtained by Cancrime). Management aceded to the demands of the inmates after they staged a one-week strike in which convicts refused to report to their prison jobs.
»Click here to read full post about last year's riot at Joyceville
»Click here to read about Josh Erdodi, the inmate who was savagely beaten during the riot
