Derksen family awaits judge’s decision in daughter’s murder trial three decades after her death

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/09/2017 (2940 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After more than 32 years, two criminal trials and lasting intentions to keep their daughter’s memory alive, the Derksen family is preparing themselves for a court decision on the fate of Candace Derksen’s accused killer.

Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Karen Simonsen is now set to deliver her verdict Oct. 18, following a six-week second-degree murder retrial for Mark Edward Grant. Grant was first arrested in 13-year-old Candace’s death 10 years ago — 23 years after she was found frozen to death in a Winnipeg lumber yard shed.

Grant’s retrial ended in May, with Crown prosecutor Brent Davidson telling the judge she should not give any weight to the DNA evidence that had consumed so much of the trial. Justice Simonsen was tasked with deciding Grant’s guilt or innocence after hearing from more than a dozen witnesses and many hours’ worth of dense, DNA-focused scientific testimony over the course of six weeks. Next month’s date for her to deliver her decision was set this week.

In the four months since the trial concluded, Candace’s parents, Cliff and Wilma Derksen, have been asked repeatedly when an ending will come in a case that has captured Winnipeg’s attention for three decades, ever since Candace went missing Nov. 30, 1984 on her way home from school in Elmwood.

They said Thursday they’re relieved to know when to expect the judge’s decision. After watching and listening to Simonsen preside over the trial, the Derksens said they respect the judge and believe she’s carefully considered this decision, whatever it will be. They don’t envy her responsibility.

“She’s asked a lot of questions throughout the whole process, she would ask for clarification, she would stop proceedings to understand — which I’ve never heard a judge do before — and I really respected that,” Cliff said.

They’re asking themselves how they might react when they finally hear the verdict.

“I can try to imagine it, I can try to think of every angle, but when it comes right down to it, there’s always an unexpected twist. That’s why it’s always just a touch frightening. It’s always traumatic,” Wilma said. “It’s like anticipating a moment that we’re waiting for, but we also have some apprehension about what it’ll do to us.

“Probably even more than justice at this point, we yearn for clarity and for some way to make sense of it.”

They’ve been searching for answers for years, and they’ve been through all of this before. This was, after all, Grant’s second murder trial in Candace’s death.

The Manitoba Court of Appeal overturned his 2011 second-degree murder conviction in an appeal that made it to the Supreme Court of Canada. The high court ruled the trial judge erred by not allowing the jury to hear evidence that could have pointed to another suspect, and took into account potential frailties of DNA evidence linking Grant, a convicted sex offender, to the crime.

The DNA recovered from slightly more than four metres of twine used to bind Candace’s wrists and ankles — leaving her “hog-tied” in the storage shed as she froze to death — was heavily criticized by expert geneticists called to testify by Grant’s defence lawyer Saul Simmonds. On the last day of Grant’s retrial, the Crown conceded the judge shouldn’t rely on the DNA results extracted from the twine, but argued the case turns on more than DNA, suggesting Grant had the “means and opportunity” to kill Candace.

The decision is expected the week after Thanksgiving, and the timing isn’t lost on Wilma Derksen.

“We’re thankful for the process, we’re thankful for being together,” she said of her family. “But it won’t be a celebration of the verdict, whatever it is, because there’s no happy ending to this story.”

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @thatkatiemay