Parole board revokes passes for multiple murderer
A Vancouver man convicted of the murder of four people in 1980 has lost his right to unescorted absences from prison.
Steven Leclair shot and killed three people in a Vancouver bar in September 1980, then drove to the RCMP detachment in Richmond, where he killed one officer and wounded another.
On May 9, the Parole Board of Canada took away Leclair’s right to unescorted absences from prison, something he was first granted in 2013. Previously, the board said his risk to re-offend was “moderate.”
The board’s decision cited an incident on Feb. 27, when Leclair, now 70 years old, was “rude and disrespectful to an institutional staff member.”
Leclair had been expressing anxiety and stress in the weeks prior, as well as “anti-social and/or anti-authoritarian thoughts.”
“The pattern strongly mirrors the personal and emotional struggles, thoughts and attitudes leading up to the murders,” the board wrote.
“You have a significant prior criminal history that included violence towards family members, strangers, police and intimate partners,” the board added.
He was also belligerent after receiving documents ahead of a day parole hearing, “made disparaging comments towards his victims,” and said he didn’t want any more correspondence from the parole board.
It took a day and a half for him to apologize for his behaviour, the board noted, adding he minimized his behaviour, “projected responsibility to the victims and failed to see how your behaviour suggested a lack of empathy or remorse.”
The decision also said that “in July 2015, the Board cautioned you with respect to pushing the boundaries regarding being out of direct supervision of your wife.”
A letter from his wife to the board said he had made progress during his sentence and that during the 19 years she’s known him, he’d “always taken responsibility for his crimes and have expressed victim empathy.”
But the board decided to cancel his passes.
Leclair had been allowed up to 72 hours of unescorted absence from prison per month beginning in 2014. He was allowed one 48-hour leave and another 24-hour leave, as long as he abided by a long list of conditions.
At the time, the parole board said he still had treatment needs and his reintegration into the community needed to be gradual and monitored. Leclair had asked for longer leaves to spend time with his wife, shop, go to movies and attend church in an undisclosed location in the Vancouver area.
The board has called his crimes among the most heinous in the history of B.C.
Leclair was at a bar in Vancouver on Sept. 19, 1980, when he was thrown out for “belligerent behaviour,” the parole board’s decision said. As he was removed, he told two staff members he would be back to kill them.
A short time later, Leclair returned, killing a waiter, a woman seated nearby and the bar’s manager. He also fired at someone fleeing, but missed.
After that, Leclair commandeered a passing vehicle and ordered the driver to take him to an RCMP detachment in Richmond, where he killed one officer and wounded another. The violence ended when a third officer ordered Leclair to surrender, prompting the killer to throw down his gun.
Leclair applied for — and was denied — early parole in 1998 under the so-called faint hope clause, which allowed offenders serving life sentences to apply for parole after just 15 years, rather than the mandatory 25 years.