WARNING: The following story contains disturbing details..The victim of a killer pedophile seeking parole in BC is rallying the public to keep the perpetrator behind bars..Kerri Kehoe was kidnapped and sexually assaulted by Richard Charles Joyce in 1990. In 1989, Joyce sexually assaulted a nine-year-old girl with Down syndrome. He kidnapped another nine-year-old girl six months later, beat her, sexually assaulted her, and threatened to kill her and her mother..“In 1990, I was kidnapped, sexually assaulted and almost murdered by Richard Joyce, who is a serial child kidnapping, rapist and murderer. He kidnapped the first girl in 1989. And she had Down's syndrome. She was nine, he kidnapped another nine-year-old around six months later. And he brutalized her, he beat her, he sodomized her twice. And then he threatened to kill her and her mom,” Kehoe said..Six months later, Kehoe was walking to the mall to meet her cousins to go swimming. She was kidnapped by Joyce and believes he fantasized about killing her during a sexual act..“I ended up surviving because when I was begging for my life, my hands happened to be on his genitals, and I was shaking, and he ejaculates and that's what saved my life,” she said..“Those are really graphic details. That, in itself, what I just described is what kept me from never speaking about it for 20 years.”. Kerri Kehoe, aged 10Kerri Kehoe, aged 10 .Joyce’s pedophile crimes were unknown to police when he went to jail for the murder of Margaret Yvonne Roleau in 1991. The mother of three suffered bruising and puncture wounds that indicated torture. Accomplice Terry Douglas Kennedy, worked at the gas station Roleau owned. Kennedy fatally stabbed her and was a pallbearer at her funeral while his guilt remained unknown..When Joyce applied for parole in 2010, DNA evidence connected him to his second victim. Publicity surrounding the solved cold case prodded Kehoe and the mother of the Down syndrome child to come forward. In 2011, Joyce received concurrent sentences for the crimes to be served over 12 years..Kehoe said she was told at the time by the parole board that they did not want to waste resources on Joyce because he wouldn’t survive jail. With this assurance, she got the court ban of the publication of her name lifted and spoke openly across Canada about the important work of police and victims services..“I've always been using my name, because I was told [Joyce] was leaving prison in a body bag,” she said. Even so, he applied for escorted passes in the community last year and is now applying for full parole..Kehoe asked the board about Kennedy’s status and discovered he was approved for escorted passes into the community within the past 12 months..She believes the parole board and corrections services are more focused on rehabilitating prisoners than considering victims. She said she was not told twelve years ago about the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime (CRCVC) or the federal victims of crime ombudsman..Joyce is currently at the William Head Institution, a minimum-security facility in Metchosin, BC. CRCVC executive director Aline Vlasceanu issued a statement to the parole board that he should stay there..“Paroling him would perpetuate the suffering of victims and their families and undermine the safety and well-being of our community. We implore you to consider the broader implications of this decision and to prioritize the rights and safety of the innocent over any other consideration,” she wrote..In an interview with the Western Standard, Vlasceanu said although the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights was passed in 2015, it has little teeth..“If one of your rights have been breached, there’s no formal processes of complaint, or getting some sort of actual remedy in place,” she said..“Sure, you could probably take it to the parole board. You can file a complaint, but it's the parole board investigating the parole board. So chances are something actually moving forward or real change is happening is not that big.”.Vlasceanu said this situation motivates her work at the centre where services are provided for free..“You quickly realize when you're working in the criminology field how few rights victims are afforded in the entire criminal justice system. There's not a lot of mention of victims of crime; it's a very niche subject. But when you think about it, there's very few victimless crimes,” she said..“Most of these processes weren't set up for victims to be a part of, to participate, etcetera. So a lot of the time you're kind of thrown into it, but without a lot of guidance or support.”.In a statement to the Western Standard, Tanya Glenn, regional manager for the Parole Board of Canada (PBC) in the Pacific Region, said the board "is committed to including victims of crime in the conditional release process."."Victims of crime may submit information to the PBC at any time related to safety concerns, the offender's risk to re-offend and/or the effect the crime has had on them, their family, or the community," she wrote..This "assists PBC Board members to understand the seriousness of the offence and to assess whether the offender recognizes the harm they have done.”.However, Vlasceanu said the mandates of both the PBC and CSC are to “rehabilitate and reintegrate.” In some cases she has seen, prisoners have scheduled their parole hearings, then cancelled and rescheduled them at the last minute as many as nine times..“It's really, really traumatizing to have to go through this entire process and to have to rewrite these letters, etcetera. Perhaps, in someone's view, it might have been a horrible waste of resources to get that [dangerous offender] designation on [Joyce]. But I think it would have helped the victims,” she said..“Most people don't necessarily want to take away from the rights of the offenders. But we want to make sure that there's equal footing so that victims have rights themselves.”.The hearing for Joyce will be held Sept. 7. Kehoe has launched a Facebook group to rally the public against Mr. Joyce's release and to share their wishes with the Parole Board of Canada. She promised to be present with the mother of Joyce’s first victim as she testifies online. .“I was dealing with all this on my own. And I said to myself, ‘Well, if I'm having these bad days, I bet the mom's having the bad days, too.’ So I contacted her. I said, ‘How are things going?’ And she said, ‘I filed it away until you contacted me.’”.The mother decided to testify, thanks to Kehoe’s presence..“The mom wasn't going to participate in this because it's too hard,” she explained..“And that's how they end up getting these quiet releases into a new community where other people are vulnerable, because they don't know that there's predators amongst them.”.Kehoe is also familiar with the mother of the Down syndrome girl and her daughter..“The mom of the girl with Down syndrome always believed something very horrific happened to her daughter. But back in 1989, they told the mom that she had a psychotic break,” Kehoe said..“If you've ever met anybody with Down syndrome, they have a lot of light, a lot of love, a lot of innocence…[Instead, she] has been heavily medicated for 34 years now on psychotropic medication because she can't function without it. She's fearful. She hides and hides and she doesn't sleep for days on end. So her entire life has been stolen from her.”.Kehoe said her cousin April Morrison was killed by a pedophile in Kingston in 1981. He was sentenced for raping a four-year-old girl, and killed Morrison eleven days after his early release. She reminded the parole board of this in her statement..“I do not want to share the private details of my mental health issues secondary to my childhood kidnapping, sexual assault and surviving a near death experience at the hands of Joyce when I was 11 years old. I do not want Joyce to have those details. My therapist that I continue to see to this day has those details,” she said..“I don’t believe model prisoners become pedophiles. I believe pedophiles become model prisoners and cascade their way down to minimum security in the hopes of being granted escorted temporary absence as the beginning of their potential release plans.”
