Facing the Devil

Yesterday, Kelly-Anne's family were at the parole hearing for her killer. He decide he would  request day parole because it was his legal right to do so according to the sentence he had received.
It was our choice to be there and to present statements, a choice I do not regret. Even though it was an emotional  time, I felt that the board needed to hear from us. The board needed to hear the depth our our loss and how life as been for us during the  past 10 years.

I felt that I was in a time bubble. Time has stood still for Martin Morin -Cousineau. Nothing has changed in his life whereas I and many others lives have evolved. We have all faced challenges, learnt and seen new things, met new people and experienced the good and  the not so good. That is  life, but for him he remains unchanged.

He is unchanged because of choice. He  does not see himself as equal to the other prisoners. He  still believes that he has been wrongfully convicted and that he should not have been found guilty of second degree murder.  He fails to understand that  his peers judged him guilty and that judgement was backed up by an appeal hearing.

I must say that Correctional Services have gone over and above to help him...but as the old saying goes, you  can't lead a horse to water and expect him to drink. One needs to first accept  the situation, then make the decision to change and move forward with a plan and the determination to stick to that plan. This is  something he has not done.

I am not worried. I will now leave the future of his stay in prison to the Parole Board. From what I  witnessed yesterday, he will never get out of prison.

The devil remains behind bars. I will keep watching him from afar with yearly reports from  Correctional Services. I will continue to write statements when needed, but I will never see his face again as I will never return to prison. His future will be predicated on what he  succeed to do in prison. It is all in the devil's hands.