Clifford Olson, Canada’s most reviled serial killer, is just days from death, families of his child victims say.
They say Olson’s last breath will bring some closure decades after his murderous crime spree ended with a controversial cash-for-bodies deal with police.
Sharon Rosenfeldt, the mother of one of Olson’s 11 victims, said Olson has been moved to a hospital in Quebec with just days to live.
The family member of another victim said the killer is at a facility in Laval.
“There’s no blueprint for how I’m supposed to be feeling,” Rosenfeldt said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
“At first, it was very much shock, then I became emotional, not necessarily over Olson but I became emotional over my son, his little face flashed before me, my children, my family, my parents who were so devastated by this years ago.”
Rosenfeldt said she was told by the commissioner for Corrections Canada that the 71-year-old killer’s cancer has spread through his body.
Olson may have only days to live, news that left Rosenfeldt in a state of relief, but also confusion.
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“I felt, ‘My God Sharon, I should be feeling yippee.’ But I’ve been conditioned, I guess. I was raised in a Christian belief that I just don’t get yippee over anybody’s death.”
Sixteen-year-old Daryn Johnsrude, one of Olson’s first victims, was Rosenfeldt’s son.
Raymond King, the father of another victim, said he wanted to see Olson dead 30 years ago.
The killer’s terminal condition will never bring complete closure for the horror his family went through when Raymond Jr. died, but King said at least it means the families won’t have to continue confronting Olson at every parole hearing.
Olson, once dubbed “the Beast of B.C.” in media reports, had been serving a life sentence at a maximum-security prison.
He was handed 11 concurrent life terms in 1982 after pleading guilty to the
murders, which occurred in and around the Vancouver area in 1981.
The admission followed a deal that paid Olson $100,000 to lead police to the remains of his young victims.
The case – especially the blood-money payoff – sparked a storm of controversy that engulfed senior B.C. justice authorities.
Because the trial was aborted, much of the evidence surrounding the murders and the police investigation was never disclosed.
“Mr. Olson presents a high risk and a psychopathic risk,” National Parole Board panel member Jacques Letendre said at Olson’s parole hearing in 2006.
“He is a sexual sadist and a narcissist. If released, he will kill again.”
Olson’s victims, killed over an eight-month period between Nov. 17, 1980 and July 30, 1981, were boys and girls between the ages of 13 and 17.
They didn’t fit the profile of troubled youth who may have run away from home. They disappeared without a trace, gripping Vancouver and its suburbs in terror. Police were under tremendous pressure to solve the disappearances.
Olson had been a suspect for weeks.
He was arrested Aug. 12, 1981, on Vancouver Island after a surveillance team spotted him picking up two young hitchhikers.
Olson faced 10 first-degree murder counts as his trial began Jan. 14, 1982.
But it had barely begun when he reversed his not guilty plea, admitted to 11 killings and was sentenced to life with no parole eligibility for 25 years.
With files from Global National reporter Mike Armstrong.
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