Arsonist’s release nixed after he flees institution
Man convicted in deaths of two kids had escaped before, parole board says
A man convicted in the deaths of two children in a southeast Calgary arson has had his statutory release revoked by the Parole Board of Canada.
Michael Douglas Sheets was living at a minimum security institution in the Fraser Valley when he walked away from the institution on Sept. 2, documents from the parole board state. He was arrested on Vancouver Island on Sept. 4.
Sheets, 49, is serving a sentence of 14 years and six months for arson, manslaughter and escaping lawful custody.
“In November 2004 you and an accomplice threw two Molotov cocktails into the victims’ house, after being hired to scare the female occupant,” the documents state.
While a female in the house escaped, her two young children died in the fire. Sheets, described by the parole board as a heavy drug user at the time of the offence, turned himself in to police following the fatal incident.
His disappearance in September wasn’t the first time he escaped, according to the parole board. He also went unlawfully at large three times while on day parole in 2013 and once in 2015 during an escorted temporary absence from a minimum security institution.
Sheets completed day parole and transitioned to statutory release in February 2018, staying at a halfway house on Vancouver Island, the board said. In June, police were contacted after a video surveillance camera allegedly showed him stealing money from a donation box while working as a janitor. He was not charged and denied stealing any money.
He was waiting for the board’s decision on his statutory release when he escaped from the Fraser Valley facility.
In revoking his statutory release, the board concluded Sheets’ “risk to reoffend is undue.”