Summerland sex offender ‘Eddie Spaghetti’ back behind bars

WARNING: This story contains disturbing details. Reader discretion is advised.

A convicted Summerland sex offender is back behind bars after failing to stay away from child pornography, the Parole Board of Canada wrote in a decision released Thursday.

Edward Casavant, 58, was known as Eddie Spaghetti to countless Summerland, B.C., children who became familiar with him at the pool where he worked for years.

His harmless moniker, however, belied more than a decade of criminal behaviours that were uncovered in 2018 when police found 275 videos of child pornography on his personal computer. He was also found using a spy camera in a pool changing room to record underage boys, and sexually abusing an eight-year old boy with autism in his care.

He pleaded guilty to accessing child pornography, voyeurism to observe/record activity, sexual exploitation of persons with disabilities and printing/publishing child pornography and went to prison for a five-year sentence in 2020.

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In March 2023, he was granted day parole as legislated for the time he’d already been sentenced.

In February, however,  his freedoms were curtailed again after he ran afoul of his release conditions.

According to a Parole Board of Canada report issued Thursday, Casavant’s parole officer was contacted by local police in February and told he’d been caught accessing child pornography on the computer at the Pro Shop where he’d been working.

“Police stated another employee at the Pro Shop was looking through downloads on the computer and noticed a folder called ‘cowboys,'” the report reads.

“The employee opened it and noted images of boys swimming in a lake. Following an investigation, police noted (he) was the lone employee when the child-related images were accessed on the work computer.”

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The images dated back to a couple of months before the discovery was made, and according to the parole board it wasn’t viewed every time he went to work.

That said, conditions were still such that warrants of suspension, as well as an order of apprehension for breaching his parole condition of pornography restriction were issued. He was arrested without incident at the residential facility where he’d been staying.

After his arrest, there was case consultation and police found what was discovered on the computer did not meet the threshold for charging him with accessing and possessing sexually explicit images of children.

“In one of the videos located, the males were of legal age but looked like teen boys,” the parole board said.

He also accessed YouTube and a “pornography site using search terms consistent with (his) interest in sex with children.”

Although his activities did not meet the legal definition of accessing child pornography, his case manager arrived at the conclusion that was his intention and recommended revocation of his statutory release.

That assessment was one the parole board agreed with.

The board said Casavant is an above-average risk to reoffend sexually, and that is further aggravated by his pedophilic disorder.

“The board finds (his) activities in the community that involved (his) accessing sexually explicit images of children, in particular at (his) place of employment where (he) was given (his) first opportunity of unsupervised access to the internet, underscores the level of deviancy and risk in (his) case,” the decision reads.

The board said Casavant was actively engaged in his crime cycle when he accessed sexually exploitive material to meet his sexual needs and desires and did so purposefully and willfully.

This, despite having the skills and tools needed to manage his risk left the board with “no alternatives to incarceration that would be sufficient to protect the public.”