Residents in Mission held a rally outside a nearby medium security prison on Sunday to protest the arrival of a prisoner who they say shouldn’t be there.
Mission Institution on Stave Lake is set to be the new home for Walter Ramsey, who in April 2016 pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder after setting a trailer home on fire with his ex-girlfriend and her two children inside in 2015.
The 33-year-old woman, who can’t be named because of a publication ban that protects the children’s identities, died in the fire. The two children escaped unharmed. All three had been tied up inside the trailer.
“It’s been really hard on them,” said the kids’ grandmother, who is now caring for them and also can’t be identified. “They’ve been going to counselling since it happened.”
Ramsey was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 20 years, and the family says he was immediately placed in a maximum security facility.
The children’s grandmother is outraged that he’ll soon be in a more moderate prison close to her home where the kids are living.
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Mission Institution is described as a residential facility that consists of a small group of houses along with a 50-bed unit, laid out in a campus design model. It’s also incorporated with the nearby minimum security facilities once known as the Ferndale Institution.
“He’s got more rights than we do,” the grandmother added. “It’s just not right.”
The woman’s friends, who held signs reading, “Murderers should not be neighbours with their intended victims” and “Maximum security for murderers,” said the transfer was done without the family being notified.
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A request for interviews with Mission Institution and Correctional Service Canada were not returned Sunday.
The grandmother, meanwhile, says she won’t let Ramsey’s transfer get in the way of her efforts to raise the children in a safe environment.
“I want to do everything I can to protect them, and I feel like I’m failing them in allowing this to happen,” she said.
With files from Kristen Robinson
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