It’s been six years since 44-year-old Travis Vader was a suspect in the murder of elderly couple Lyle and Marie McCann.
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“It has been a marathon of hope and anxiety and ups and downs”, McCann said Wednesday as he reflected on what the family has gone through since his parents disappeared. Their bodies have never been found. “Something we call subjective foresight of death, so demonstrating the person that did that death, who caused that death, knew that that death was likely, or at least foreseeable to happen”.
He recalled promising years ago that the family would never stop looking for the McCanns, but on Thursday he admitted the search was over. “I’m pretty confident that the ruling can’t stand”.
I remember saying something like, Mom and Dad, hopefully you can hear me.
“Our memory of you will last forever”. Justice Denny Thomas told court the two were killed during a robbery.
He said Thomas used Section 230, which allows for a murder verdict if a wrongful death occurs during the commission of another crime, such as robbery.
“The killing of the McCanns was not a first-degree murder”, Thomas said. “It is therefore a second-degree murder”.
Defence lawyer Brian Beresh allowed it might be possible Vader stole the vehicle, but that didn’t mean he killed anyone.
McCann said family members are fully prepared for either verdict.
When the judge left the courtroom, McCann beamed a big smile as his family and friends hugged each other and cried. Sankoff said there’s also a provision for Crown and defence lawyers to ask the judge to reconsider his verdict, a highly technical legal process that could take months. The justice said there were other possibilities as to how the couple died.
The conviction carries an automatic life sentence, but a hearing still needs to be held to determine Vader’s parole eligibility. Thomas said he would set a date for that hearing on October 3.
Stewart pointed to significant evidence found inside the SUV, including Vader’s DNA found on Lyle’s hat, more DNA and blood found on the wheel and the passenger seat, a fingerprint belonging to Vader on a can of beer in the front-seat console and cans of food tainted with Marie’s blood.
The McCanns, in their late 70s, were last seen fuelling up their motorhome in their home town of St. Albert, just north of Edmonton, before heading to British Columbia.
Ruling in favour of the application made by several media outlets, Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Denny Thomas called the potentially precedent-setting move “a one-off decision” based on a “unique set of facts”.
Beresh said while Vader is also disappointed with the result, he believes an appeal will be successful.
“After we reviewed the decision, we found a major error where [Thomas] relied upon a section of the Criminal Code that was declared unconstitutional a number of decades ago”, Beresh told CBC News.
We think its an error that in this case the court didnt reconstruct, he said.
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He did not buy the defence’s suggestion that the McCanns are still alive today. Mr. Vader’s motivation to interact with the McCanns was theft.
