Other Topics > Solved Cases

Candace Derksen - 13 - Murdered November 30, 1984 - SOLVED

(1/14) > >>

AlbertaCowboy:

The Candace Derksen Murder

On Friday, November 30, 1984, 13-year old Candace Derksen disappeared while walking home from school. Seven weeks later she was found frozen to death in an old machinery shed on some industrial land about 500 meters from her home.

Candace, a grade 7 student at the Mennonite Brethren Collegiate, was last seen by friends as she walked home alone from school shortly after 4:00 p.m. along Talbot Avenue. As she had an out of town friend coming to stay with her the following day, it was expected that she would come straight home after school to prepare for her friend?s arrival. As the walk from the school to her home would have taken about 20 minutes, it is believed that she would have been home sometime around 4:30 p.m. She never arrived.

Seven weeks later, on January 17, 1985, Candace?s body was found in an unused machinery shed on the property of Alsip?s Industrial Products on Cole Avenue. This property is located south of Talbot Avenue, near the Nairn Overpass, between the school and Candace?s home. Although the property now has a fence around it, in 1984 it was easily accessible by walking along a green space or the CPR rail line (and service road) that runs beneath the Nairn Overpass from Talbot Avenue.

It is believed that Candace had been in the shed since she went missing on November 30. However, since the shed contained only a few obsolete machinery parts and some old tools, it was never checked unless there was some need for one of the parts that it contained. As these parts were generally old and obsolete, the shed was never locked and was easily accessible. For this reason the shed was never checked the entire time Candace was missing and her body was not found until one of Alsip?s employees went looking for an old saw he believed may have been inside.

What he found instead was the body of Candace Derksen, her hands and feet had been tied behind her back with some thick rope, making it impossible for her to walk and nearly impossible to move.

Although the shed was on private property and rarely used by Alsip employees, because of its isolation yet easy accessibility it (and other sheds on the property) may have been used as a hangout by a few neighbourhood youths after the business closed at 4:30 p.m. and on weekends.

Although Talbot is a busy street no one saw Candace being abducted and it is possible that she knew the suspect, although threats of violence and the presence of a weapon by a stranger may have ensured her compliance and cooperation without drawing attention. However, it is believed that the suspect may have been a single white male, acting alone who was familiar with and/or lived in the area. He probably would have been a young adult at the time (30-40 years old today) and while he may have had an abnormal interest in bondage, he would not have stuck out from his peers at this time, although it is likely he has been arrested for offences in the intervening years.

Few clues were left behind at the scene, however it is possible that the suspect had darker hair that had been bleached at one time, was somewhat athletic, manipulative, possibly had interests in bizarre subjects, and lived in the area. The police are particularly interested in the names of any people who worked in the area or hung around the sheds of this industrial area on or before 1984.

If you have any information about this case, please contact Crime Stoppers at 786-TIPS (8477), or e-mail Sgt. Al Bradbury and Det. Jon Lutz of the Cold Case Homicide Unit.

Chris:
A 43-year-old man has been arrested and charged in connection with the 1984 death of Winnipeg teenager Candace Derksen, police say.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2007/05/16/candace-derksen.html

Mark Edward Grant was arrested Wednesday morning and charged with first-degree murder.

Candace Derksen, seen in an undated file photo, was found slain in a shed in Winnipeg.
(Family photo/CBC) 

Grant, classified as a dangerous offender by justice officials, has a lengthy criminal record with several convictions for assault and sexual assault, parole records indicate.

Derksen, 13, was last seen walking home from the Mennonite Brethren Collegiate in the East Kildonan area of Winnipeg in November 1984. Her frozen body was found seven weeks later in a shed in the same neighbourhood. Bound at the wrists and ankles, she died of exposure.

Police said they believed she had been in the the little-used machine shed owned by a manufacturing company since the day she disappeared.

The suspect was 21 at the time of Derksen's death and lived in the area.

Investigators said he was "known to police" and had been among the hundreds interviewed after Derksen's disappearance, but was not considered a suspect at the time.

Winnipeg police said Wednesday the break in the case came after the Derksen file was handed to investigators in the city's new cold case unit in 2006.

Mark Edward Grant, 43, has been classified a dangerous offender. He's charged with murder, some 23 years after the death of schoolgirl Candace Derksen.
(CBC)
Investigators declined to reveal details of the break, but said cold case detectives had noticed connections in notes in the case files that led them to identify suspects and submit forensic evidence to a private laboratory in Ontario.

The laboratory results led them to Grant, officers said.

Candace's parents, Wilma and Cliff Derksen, attended the police news conference where the suspect was identified.

"We are stunned at a few things: that the case has come to this point, and also that there is such huge interest in it," Cliff Derksen said.

"We had actually given up hope. We were already prepared to live with this mystery that has shadowed our family for so many years."

Both Derksens said they did not know Grant.

The Derksens said they felt both "anticipation and trepidation" about the progress in the case, as well as a renewed sense of sadness and loss over their daughter's death.

THUNDRCLOUD:
Thu, May 17, 2007

Charge laid in Winnipeg cold caseSuspect deemed 'sexually deviant'
By CP

     
 

WINNIPEG -- National Parole Board documents indicate a man arrested in a 23-year-old cold case is a schizophrenic whose mind is filled with disturbing rape fantasies, lust for vulnerable teens and a hatred of women.

Mark Edward Grant, 43, was charged yesterday with first-degree murder in the death of Candace Derksen, a 13-year-old who was abducted off a busy street while she was walking home from school on Nov. 30, 1984.

Parole board documents obtained by the Winnipeg Free Press indicate Grant refused any type of treatment such as chemical castration that would have reduced his sexual urges.

Grant spent nearly 13 years in prison from 1991 to 2004, except for a nine-day stretch of parole when he raped another young woman.

Behind bars, Grant alluded to other sex crimes dating as far back as the 1970s for which he was never charged, but he never disclosed specific details nor mentioned Candace Derksen.

 

Justice officials had grave concern for the safety of any young woman who had contact with him.

"Your sexual/assaultive behaviour has resulted in serious harm to the victims. You have been predatory in your choice of victims, often looking for unsophisticated and vulnerable post-pubescent female children," the parole board wrote in revoking his parole in 1995.

"The board is satisfied that, if released, you are likely to commit an offence causing the death of, or serious harm to another person before the expiration of your sentence."

It noted Grant's self-reported "sexually deviant" behaviour that hadn't resulted in criminal charges including raping a drunk female stranger.

He linked his "hatred of women" to the behaviour of his mother and sister and being "victimized" as a child, but gave no specifics.

"You are considered to be more concerned about your own sexual gratification than you are about the consequences your offending causes to others," the parole board wrote in 2004.

"You admit your sexual gratification comes from the vulnerability of young women and children as 'they are so trusting.' "

Testing of Grant revealed an "elevated level of arousal to rape stimuli" with the highest peaks occurring "with material depicting inappropriate sexual contacts with children, predominantly to female."

Grant also described having "command hallucinations" which directed him to try and harm himself, or others.

He disclosed several failed suicide attempts and was diagnosed as schizophrenic.

THUNDRCLOUD:
I FIND THE ABOVE MOST CHILLING,
AND AWAKENS ME YET AGAIN, THAT THERE ARE THOSE THAT WALK AMONG US THAT ARE NOT WHAT THEY SEEM TO BE. AND WORST YET MAKES ME WANT TO LOCK MY DAUGHTER AWAY.
BIT EXTREME I KNOW BUT . THERE IS SOME BIG ISSUES WITH THE JUSTICE SYSTEM. IN THESE CASES.

Chris:
Very interesting, he got out of jail and he was not being supervised or monitored? I too thought dangerous offenders could be held longer then there sentence mandated.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page