A picture of Don Edwards’ parents in his Florida home.MARK TAYLOR/The Globe and Mail
A man who killed the mother and father of former National Hockey League goaltender Don Edwards has been granted full parole, 33 years after committing the murders.
The two-person parole board deliberated for roughly 10 minutes after an emotional four-hour hearing on Friday before announcing its decision in the case of George Harding Lovie. Eleven members of the Edwards family, including children and grandchildren of victims Donna and Arnold Edwards, told the board they live in fear of being hunted and killed.
“I’m flabbergasted,” Mr. Edwards said in an interview. “They listened to victim-impact statements for an hour and forty minutes, and took less than 10 minutes. It shocked me. They have no respect for victims of violence.” He told the board that Mr. Lovie is a predator, psychopath and manipulator.
During the hearing, lead board member Howard Bruce asked Mr. Lovie to comment on the trauma he had caused to multiple generations of the Edwards family.
“It’s absolutely 100 per cent my fault,” he said. “The only way I can help them in my eyes is to stay on the straight and narrow and don’t reoffend.” His voice wavered with emotion once – when he mentioned his own late father.
Evidence from previous board reports raising doubts about his rehabilitation – for instance, that he was in denial about a sexual assault that preceded the murders – was barely explored when board members questioned Mr. Lovie.
The board’s decision allows Mr. Lovie to live in Sudbury but to apply for travel permits to see his stepmother and other family members in Brantford, 36 kilometres away from Hamilton, where members of the Edwards family still live.
The board made its decision in the shadow of an episode that raised alarms less than two weeks ago, when Mr. Lovie was given a travel permit to drive to Brantford and the authorities said he had gone off his approved route. When he did not answer attempts to contact him, a warrant was issued for his arrest and the Edwards family was warned to activate their safety plans.
But Mr. Lovie said he had taken the same route on a previous trip to Brantford and Mr. Bruce and board colleague Maureen Gauci accepted his explanation.
Mr. Lovie was sentenced to a mandatory term of life in prison with his first eligibility for day parole at 22 years, and full parole at 25 years. He was granted day parole after 28 years, under several conditions, including that he live at a halfway house and stay away from parts of Ontario in which members of the extended Edwards family live. He was also ordered to report any friendships or relationships with women to his parole officer.
The murders of Donna and Arnold Edwards on March 21, 1991, grew out of a violent incident involving their daughter Michele a month earlier. Mr. Lovie was charged with sexual assault at gunpoint and knifepoint, and released on bail.
Evidence at his murder trial showed he was obsessed with persuading her to recant the allegations, and blamed her parents for her unwillingness to reconcile. He had been under the porch of her house since 4 a.m., armed with a lever-action repeating rifle and knife in his belt.
When she spotted him a few hours later, she raced across the street to seek refuge in her parents’ home. He followed, and shot at her. He then shot her mother, twice, and stabbed her father five times, as he shouted, “D’you like me now? D’you like me now?” The words were recorded during a 911 call.
Mr. Lovie was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and one of attempted murder of Michele. The earlier charges of sexual assault and forcible confinement were stayed.
The standard for conditional release is that an offender is “not an undue risk” to public safety. In Mr. Lovie’s case, actuarial figures from Correctional Services Canada described him when he applied for day parole as having a one-in-three chance of violently reoffending, defined as a low-to-moderate risk. It said, though, that he was at high risk of intimate-partner violence.
Mr. Bruce said full parole “would not be a very big change” because for the past year Mr. Lovie had been allowed to live at home for five days a week, while in a halfway house the other two days.