Nearly 15 years after Lyle and Marie McCann disappeared, Bret McCann tries not to think about what could have happened to his parents.
After what McCann describes as an “odyssey” of legal proceedings, when Travis Vader was handed a life sentence for manslaughter in 2017 for killing the St. Albert, Alta., couple, McCann said his family tried their best to continue with their lives.
But what they know about what happened, and what’s left uncertain, is still painful.
“I don’t think cope is the right word — I have this nightmare every once in a while, and I don’t cope with it,” McCann said in a December interview.
“I assume that he killed one initially and the other watched. My parents were very close.”
Vader’s sentence came with seven years of parole ineligibility. The Parole Board of Canada is set to hear his application for day parole on Thursday. However, the hearing could be called off or rescheduled with no warning.
McCann and his wife now split their time between Canada and Australia, where their daughter is raising two little girls.
The children are still too young to hear about why their great-grandparents are gone, the search after they vanished in the summer of 2010, the discovery of their burned-out motorhome and the unanswered questions about where they are.
McCann plans to deliver a victim statement to the parole board hearing, with the same message he’s repeated for years.
“It’s very important for [Vader] to acknowledge and to admit to his guilt,” he said.
“And the one person who knows where they are, where my parents’ remains are, has said nothing.”
‘Twists and turns’ in the case
The investigation into the deaths of the elderly McCanns became one of Alberta’s most high-profile cases, winding its way through the court system for years.
Vader was charged with first-degree murder in 2012, only for the Crown prosecutor to issue a stay days before the planned 2014 trial — then revive the case nine months later, charging him again with murder in the deaths of the McCanns.
Defence lawyer Brian Beresh represented Vader in the trial that ultimately proceeded in 2016.
“I don’t think I’ve ever defended a case over five decades where there has been more evidence collected, but not supporting any specific theory. Because there were so many officers involved, everything was collected,” Beresh said.
The trial ended with a judge finding Vader guilty of second-degree murder, but then vacating the verdict because he’d relied on an outdated, unconstitutional provision of the Criminal Code. Vader was instead convicted of manslaughter.
In 2019, the Alberta Court of Appeal rejected Vader’s application for a new trial, as well as an application seeking a reduced sentence. The Supreme Court of Canada also decided not to consider Vader’s appeal the same year.
Beresh said years later, he’s still left with doubts about what happened in the case.
“There were many twists and turns within the case. So I will remember it forever, absolutely.”
When Vader was sentenced, he maintained that “The court has convicted an innocent man.”
McCann said unless he admits that he’s guilty of killing his parents, he shouldn’t be let out of prison.
“I accept that if he’s rehabilitated, he should be allowed to come back into society. But I think it’s very important that he acknowledge and admit to his crime.”