Dennis Cheeseman denied parole

There will be no parole for a man convicted in the deaths of four Alberta Mounties near Mayerthorpe.

Two National Parole Board officers say Dennis Cheeseman said the right things at his hearing Wednesday at the Drumheller Penitentiary in southern Alberta.

But they didn’t feel he’d done enough in prison to better himself.

Cheeseman admitted he didn’t feel he was ready for full parole, but was asking to be allowed out of jail during the day. The Corrections Service of Canada had recommended day parole be granted.

Cheeseman and his brother-in-law pleaded guilty to manslaughter because they gave James Roszko a gun and a ride back to Roszko’s farm where he shot the Mounties in March 2005. The officers were guarding a Quonset hut on his property as part of a marijuana grow-op and automobile chop shop investigation.

Cheeseman was sentenced to 12 years in prison but, with credit for his guilty plea and pre-trial custody, is serving a little more than seven years.

Several family members of the dead RCMP officers attended the parole hearing and passionately urged the panel to deny Cheeseman any freedom.

"His silence killed four good men," Colleen Myrol, whose son Brock was one of the four killed.

"Dennis Cheeseman has given each and every one of us a life sentence," added Grace Johnston, the mother of slain Const. Leo Johnston.

Cheeseman apologized to the families. He said he realizes one phone call to police might have saved the lives of Myrol, Johnston, Peter Schiemann and Anthony Gordon.

But he never once looked at any family members as he apologized.