Still in denial, triple killer granted full parole
A panel of two parole board members gave Jon Rallo, 77, his freedom on Friday
Nearly 45 years after killing his wife and two young children, Jon Rallo has been granted full parole.
He still won’t reveal what he did with his son’s body. He still maintains his innocence. He still sticks to his absurd story about a mysterious man who stole his family — despite not one shred of evidence the man ever existed.
And yet …
The former City of Hamilton manager who strangled Sandra, 29, and Stephanie, 5, and threw them away in local waterways and who killed Jason, 6, who
has never been found, is deemed such a low risk of reoffending that he has been given the rest of his life back.
A life that is more or less like that of many other 77-year-olds right now.
He will, he says, reside with his “wife” in their apartment in the Sudbury area. They will do jigsaw puzzles, make spaghetti dinners on Thursdays and go out for groceries and medical appointments. They look forward to gardening in the spring and long for the pandemic to end so they can once again visit “their” grandchildren, go out for dinner, return to church and — Rallo is particularly excited about this — travel across Canada.
He will be on parole the rest of his life. He will have to check in with a parole officer and stay away from his victims’ family. He must report all new relationships with women.
But for the most part, he has been given his freedom.
At the thought of that, in the final moments of his video hearing with the Parole Board of Canada (PBC) on Friday, Rallo hung his head and wept.
Those were quite possibly the first genuine tears he has ever cried at one of these things.
And thus, one of Hamilton’s most notorious homicide cases reaches the end of its judicial journey.
For Sandra’s sister, Janice Orovan, it feels like a cell door slamming shut on her last chance for answers.
“The thing that hurts the most is that we’ll never know where Jason is,” she says. “That door’s closed now.”
Since Rallo was first released on day parole in 2008, he repeatedly appeared before the PBC asking for freedom.
Over and over again, Janice made the trek to prisons in Bracebridge to beg Rallo to reveal where Jason’s body is. Each time she wept and her heart broke all over again.
If there is one silver lining in Rallo being granted full parole, says Janice, it is that she can now try to focus on the sweet memories of her family instead of reliving their murders each time Rallo has a hearing.
There have been four in the past year.
At every hearing until now, the PBC members rejected Rallo’s bid for full parole — despite being a model prisoner — blaming his “denial stance.” They said it showed his unwillingness to take responsibility for his three first-degree murder convictions.
Rallo maintains his innocence. So what changed?
For one thing, he had a new psychiatric assessment last month, his first in years.
It not only showed he is at low risk of reoffending based on his testing, but also cited new research that showed the longer offenders are in the community “offence free,” the lower the probability they will reoffend at all.
Rallo has had “positive behaviour” while on parole.
His parole officer recommended full parole to the board. His caseworker submitted a letter that caused a board member to say: “I’m not sure I’ve ever read a more supportive letter from a halfway house.”
Also, while Sudbury police publicly stated their concerns about Rallo moving into one of the city’s halfway houses 13 years ago, now it says it has no concerns about Rallo living full time in the community.
Rallo has been in a relationship with the same woman for years. They have lived together since 2012. She and her family know Rallo’s history.
(Rallo, who killed his children long before they could have children of their own, refers to his partner’s grandchildren as “our grandchildren.”)
Also new from previous hearings was the board’s decision to forgo reviewing the facts of the murders with Rallo. The deaths were not discussed at all.
On the evening of Aug. 16, 1976, Rallo tucked his children into bed at their pretty Lantana Court home on the west Mountain.
Sometime after that, police believed Rallo and Sandra argued about an affair he was having.
Detectives surmised that woke the children. So Rallo killed them all.
At past hearings, different PBC members sparked an explosive, angry, response from Rallo by pressing him on the evidence of his case. Discussing the evidence is standard at most parole hearings. This time, for reasons not explained, it was skipped.
All Rallo said about murdering his family was this: “It’s been difficult from Day1 for everyone … Both sides, both families have suffered immensely. I feel the same as Janice does. It never goes away.”
Also new are Rallo’s health problems. Though specifics were not shared, it was mentioned that he has significant cardiac issues.
“Because of my age and because of my medical condition I was in the category of very vulnerable” regarding COVID, he said.
Last month, the PBC authorized another “emergency extended leave for medical purposes” for Rallo. Since April 2020, just after the pandemic began, he has been allowed to live seven days a week with his partner, rather than five days at home and two days at his halfway house, which he had been ordered to do for years prior to the pandemic. As a congregate living setting, a halfway house poses an increased risk of transferring the virus.
For months, Rallo has essentially been living as though he was on full parole, with no problems arising.
Finally, the most dramatic difference in this hearing from all the rest was Rallo himself. He was calmer. Friendlier. Unlike other pre-COVID hearings, he did not have observers in the room with him. He also didn’t have to make the drive to his old prison in Bracebridge where his hearings are usually held. This time, he appeared virtually from his parole officer’s office in Sudbury.
Wearing a dark sweater and a dark COVID mask, Rallo looked more relaxed than in the past.
“I have learned how to chill out.”