Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime

Convicted Killer Worms Way Out Back Door

Bypassed publicly accountable parole board

Joey Thompson, The Province

Published: Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Eleven times he booked a hearing with the federal parole board and 11 times, killer Zack Finley backed off, likely aware that given his violent behaviour, there was little chance of an early spring.

But no worries. Last week, the warden of the Quebec penitentiary, where he's serving time, handed the 34-year-old lifer a bunch of escorted passes out of prison so he could work on "personal development."

How thoughtful: A personal-growth plan for a thug who murdered at age 18, thumped out a guard in 1995 and escaped with pen pals, Tsawwassen family killer Darren Huenemann and Surrey mass killer Daljit Singh Dulay, joined in a B.C. pen riot, committed armed robbery and assault, was relocated from one prison to another 13 times, and wound up in a special handling unit in Saskatchewan reserved for the nation's most uncontrollable.

I'll admit, the Corrections Services Canada policy granting institutional heads the authority to show lifers the door had escaped my notice.

Ditto for Rosalie Turcotte, mother of Ken, the man Finley murdered. As if the courageous mom hadn't had it up to here with our ill-devised corrections system, having had to psych herself up for 11 National Parole Board hearings only to have every one cancelled by a murderer whom the law lets withdraw his parole request at the last minute.

But then came the call from CSC last week. The warden had OK'd a program of supervised temporary absences for Finley, who had made mincemeat of her son's brain with a baseball bat in Mission years ago. Turcotte wasn't allowed to know how many passes he had, only that he was using his first in a few hours.

It wasn't enough that Turcotte had to cancel several surgeries, vacations and work shifts to attend her son's killer's numerous no-show parole bids; one every three months in the last p8 months, she said. Now she had to stomach the fact that he can bypass the publicly-accountable parole board on the sly to gain time outside.

Turcotte has issues with a process that enables CSC administrators to grant lifers -- who are within three years of their parole eligibility date -- outside jaunts on the QT. A prison risk assessment determines whether the inmate requires an escort officer, armed or unarmed, or simply a community volunteer.

"Authority for this type of release to first or second degree murderers should [not] be made by the warden without any opportunity for the public or the victims to know the reasons or rationale involved," she fumed. "This authority should only lie with the NPB, as their decisions are transparent to the public through the hearing process."

She's not the only one troubled by the little-known policy. The Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime fired off a letter to Montée Saint-Francois warden Serge Gagnon last week asking that he rescind Finley's ETAs at once.

Executive director Heidi Illingworth has asked Victims of Crime Ombudsman Steve Sullivan to intervene as well.

"It is contradictory to public safety that an institutional head can allow an escorted temporary absence to a lifer who has never faced the thorough questioning of the NPB or who might never be granted full parole," Illingworth wrote the federal ombudsman.

Turcotte says there's little comfort knowing Finley is back East. "He's capable of harming anyone," she said. "He wormed his way out the back door and we, the victims, were shut out of the entire process."