Convicted killer vows to carry on lawsuit
Describing his murder conviction in 2001 as a “travesty,” a Canadian man serving a 31-year sentence in the U.S. for the 1995 killing of his former friend and business partner has vowed to carry on with a controversial lawsuit against the dead man’s widow.
Vancouver-born Larry Shandola, 62, told Postmedia News from a Washington state prison he’ll appeal last week’s dismissal of his suit against Paula Henry — whose husband, Robert, was murdered “execution-style” in a Tacoma, Wash., parking lot 18 years ago — and keep trying to overcome her objections to Shandola’s requested transfer to a Canadian prison.
“I have no desire to harass this woman,” said Shandola, insisting his legal action — which has prompted outrage in Washington and a push for new restrictions on prisoners’ rights to sue — was prompted by “false” statements made by Henry and three others in letters to the state corrections department protesting the inmate’s proposed transfer to Canada.
“I was convicted of murdering her husband,” Shandola said. “I steadfastly maintain that I did not commit that crime.”
In 2011, after several failed appeals to overturn his conviction, Shandola applied to be transferred to a Canadian prison to be closer to his family in British Columbia and increase his chances of being freed some day.
“I’d exhausted my appeals. I wasn’t getting anywhere, and I was just tired. I was burned out,” Shandola said f rom Stafford Creek Corrections Center in Aberdeen, Wash.
“So I decided I’d opt for an Inter national Treaty Transfer and go back to my own country, where we still have parole, and I’d have the faint-hope clause and have a chance to get out.”
The prospect that Shandola might be moved to Canada and win earlier release than in the U.S. led Paula Henry to register her opposition with the Washington Department of Corrections. Two of her friends did the same, as did Lew Cox, executive director of the U.S. victims-advocacy organization Violent Crimes Victims Services.
The transfer bid was rejected.
Shandola’s statement of claim highlights Paula Henry’s “false” assertions about the Canadian prisoner, including her contention that, “I know he will kill me,” “He is a skilled sociopath,” and “He stalked me and tried to intimidate me for five years” after her husband’s death.