WINNIPEG — A new trial has been ordered for the man found guilty of killing 13-year-old Candace Derksen in 1984.
Mark Edward Grant was found guilty of second-degree murder in February 2011 in the notorious case.
“Oh my goodness, are we going to have to go through this again?” said Candace’s mother, Wilma, in an interview Wednesday with Global News.
“It just seems unreal and in some ways unfair,” she added.
Derksen disappeared on Nov. 30, 1984, on her way home from her school, the Mennonite Brethren Collegiate Institute.
Despite an extensive search, her body wasn’t found until Jan. 17, 1985, hogtied and frozen in a shed in an industrial yard. She died of hypothermia.
Grant was arrested years later, on May 16, 2007.
An appeal decision released Wednesday ruled the trial judge was wrong to exclude evidence that another girl was abducted in a similar case nine months later, while Grant was imprisoned on other charges.
“It is clear Grant could not have been responsible for the second event and the striking similarity between those two should have been before the jury,” said Saul Simmonds, Grant’s lawyer.
The 12-year-old girl in that case was found on Sept. 6, 1985, tied up in an empty railway boxcar about 2.6 kilometres away from the place where Candace Derksen was found. She was released by a passerby who heard her calls for help.
“The accused wanted to present evidence to the jury that, while he was in custody, a strikingly similar incident occurred some nine months after the murder of Candace Derksen. The theory of the defence was that the person who had committed the most recent incident was also responsible for her murder,” the judges wrote in their decision.
Manitoba Justice is still reviewing the decision. Prosecutors can seek leave to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court of Canada.
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