A two-time convicted killer with a fetish for victims' panties has been denied release from a Kingston prison after the parole board noted Ernest DesRoches, 65, has refused sex offender treatment behind bars for 37 years.
DesRoches, serving two life sentences for the 1974 killings of two neighbours, and paralyzing a third in rural Prince Edward Island, waived his parole hearing last month.
The parole board later reviewed his prison file in his absence and denied him full parole. His finger print sheet dates back 45 years and includes convictions for a prison break and hostage taking.
His file, obtained by the Ottawa Citizen newspaper, shows a sexual component to his crimes. The night, Feb. 21, 1974, he went to kill his neighbours, he stripped his victims of their underwear before heading home.
DesRoches killed them because they had complained to the Mounties that he was a peeping Tom who stole panties from their clothesline.
He had already served jail time for charges of trespass by night (1973) and possession of stolen property (1971).
In 2008, he finally agreed to sex offender treatment only to refuse at the last minute saying he is not a sex criminal.
In 2004, during a psychological risk examination, they branded him deviant for responding equally to rape and consensual depictions.
"This pattern was considered to be evidence of deviant sexual preferences, and coupled with your refusal to participate in sex offender programming, is extremely troubling to the board, as you demonstrate no insight into your offending and thus have not mitigated your risk," the parole board ruled in a decision dated Oct. 25.
DesRoches has not expressed remorse and his time in prison has been far from model.
A 2010 internal security report named him as a suspect in a homebrew production operation.
DesRoches collects a Canada Pension and has told prison officials that he wants to apply for an Old Age Pension once released back into the community.
His track record on day releases haven't gone well. He's been given day passes from prison at least 200 times for everything from social events to, of all things, shopping.
Prison officials have also let him out for what they call work releases. Some of them were cancelled because they found a bunch of empty liquor bottles in his room.
Another time, they found $345 in his pocket. He explained it away, saying it was left over from one of his "shopping" trips.
And every time he's been let out of prison, guards are paid around the clock to escort him. They take him to social functions, and to community service work sites.
In 1980, he was the ringleader of an attempted prison escape across two days in Kingston, Ont., in which prison staff were taken hostage.
Some guards have privately complained about his escorted releases.
A 2003 prison report describes DesRoches as "remarkably devoid of any emotion with respect to the murders and injuries you caused."
A case management team once recommended that DesRoches should be granted unescorted temporary absences across six months for assessment sessions - even though others, including police and a correctional centre, oppossed the unescorted passes.
DesRoches is up for full parole again in 2013.
(By Gary Dimmock, Postmedia News)
