May 27 , 2015

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To the National Parole Board of Canada and Correctional Services of Canada,

Please accept this statement as my strongest opposition to the absence requests by
the violent offender George Harding Lovie.

I strongly believe that this offender

continues to pose a significant risk to the Edwards Family and society and should
never be released into the supervision of the community.
At the time of the sexual assault and murders I was a young child. Testimony from
the offenders sister Carrie showed that he had conspired to kidnap nieces and
nephews of Michele Edwards. I am one of her nephews. My earliest childhood
memory is of my grandparents funeral. I remember their pale faces, the caskets and
the pungent smells of lilies. To this day, their fragrance instantly brings me to that
Stoney Creek funeral parlor and I see their faces. The memory today is as fresh, raw
and cut as the flowers. It is obvious that the offender continues to cause emotional
and financial harm to this family as evident by the other statements presented here
today. His crimes were devastatingly grisly in nature and they were provoked in
public. He has been a constant antagonist in my childhood nightmares; nightmares
that continue today.
However, Ive tried very hard to separate my emotional feelings from a rational and
analytical assessment of the risk that the offender poses in a community setting.

have educated myself on the 1991 court documents, the dismissal opinion of Justice
J.A. Finlayson of the Ontario Court of Appeals, as well as research publications

evaluating the effectiveness of correctional programs at predicting recidivism among

violent offenders.

What I have found not only logically validates my fears, but also

strongly compels me to object to any further requests from the offender to be

released in a community setting. I feel strongly that he will hurt others. Let me review
my rational assessment of the offender:
George Lovie represents a significantly small population of long term homicide
offenders. He represents the 1% of all homicidal offenders in Canada that have
caused multiple homicides. He is further categorized into a very small minority of
murderers who was not under the influence of alcohol or illicit substances and was
also not suffering from a mental illness at the time of the crimes; less than 8%. Lovie
has no history of substance dependency and was sober on February 18 during the
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sexual assault and on March 21 during the murders. At the criminal trial, Dr. Robert
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Hill and Dr. Bryan Butler, psychiatrists for the defense, gave no scientific evidence
that Lovie had a long term or temporary mental disorder that would have impeded his
judgment. Justices Finlayson wrote in his opinion regarding the offenders appeal in
1995:
I have reviewed all of the testimony of the psychiatric experts and neither of them thought
that the appellant was incapable of the planning and deliberation alleged by the Crown with
respect to these offenses [Murders of Donna and Arnold Edwards and attempted murder of
Michele].
Dr. Hill was of the unwavering opinion that the appellant [George Harding Lovie] was entirely
capable of forming the specific intent to kill and was not suffering from any background
illness or mental disorder which would have impacted upon his capacity to form the specific
intent to kill.
Dr. Butler also was of the opinion that the offender was not psychotic, he was not out of

touch with reality, he knew that his behavior was both legally and morally wrong.

The

murders

on

March

21

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were

without

question,

premediated. Only 10% of those accused of murder are convicted of first-degree

murder. Offender Lovie was convicted twice.
- He purchased a Marlin .30-30 hunting rifle and 15cm knife on March 11 and
admitted that this was with the intent to kill Michele.
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- He practiced loading and unloading the Marlin evident by bullet casings with
many groove patterns resembling the lever action of the Marlin.
- He waited for approximately 4 hours under the porch of Micheles home in
order to ambush her on her way to work
The offender showed strong signs of emotional control
and logical thinking during the murders.
- He calmly walked after Michele as she ran to my grandparents home, over
110 meters at the beginning of crime.
- When the Marlin .30-30 jams outside the house, he found a screw driver on
the porch and steadily engaged the safety and half cock before he corrected
the issue.
- He made a strategic judgment inside the house to release the Marlin .30-30
knowing that it would be difficult to operate without prior knowledge of its
safety mechanisms. He testified he consciously decided to abandon the gun
to concentrate on stabbing my grandfather, Arnold, to death.
The offender exhibited a strong capacity to deceive and to
manipulate others.
- He proactively engaged with police when he knowingly violated conditions
set by the Justice of the Peace to avoid contact with the Edwards family. This
provided the offender with credibility that he was attempting to meet
conditions while he was deceptively stalking the family.
- He attempted create a mistrial, refusing to continue cross examination by

feigning mental illness.

o Both the trial and appeal justices, Borkovich and Finlayson respectively,
admit in their opinions that the offenders conduct was intentionally
manipulative.
The offender has a documented history of violating
conditions by the court and police.
- He left notes on Micheles car, at her house, and actively stalked and cased
the Edwards family between October 1990 and March 21 , 1991.
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- After having the custom rifle and knife confiscated from him on February 19
and verbally warned by the police of the grave consequences associated with
possessing another firearm; weeks later he purchased the murder weapons.

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The offender showed no remorse for his victims:

- He stepped over the deceased body of my grandmother several times as he
moved through her home. He made no mention of her or showed any emotion
captured on the 911 tapes.
- Shortly after his arrest, he is quoted in relation to the murders that they
more than he could have hoped for
- During his audio confession to the Hamilton Police, he coolly recounted the
events. He accounted for his time, whereabouts and his decision making
process.
- On the recording he admitted to no responsibility for the crimes and blamed
his actions on Michele and the Edwards Family.
- He exhibited no emotion or empathy for his victims during cross examination
on May 4 , 1992.
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- And to this day he has never shown remorse, or accepted any responsibility
for his actions.

I have listed all of the evidence above because it gives a profile of an offender that is
likely to commit another homicide or violent crime following community integration.
George Harding Lovie meets 10 out of 15 high risk indicators listed in a Correction

Services research brief from 2011 tasked with compiling common attributes from
convicted murders that reoffend with a similar crime. This research brief was
commissioned by the National Parole Board following an investigation into the
release and supervision of an offender on full parole charged with 1 degree murder
in Durham, Ontario (2006). The offenders profile makes him a statistical outlier in
terms of criminal offenses and raises the principle question whether correctional
programs designed for the general population would provide rehabilitation value.
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A significant portion of the Correction services programming budget is focused

towards substance abuse rehabilitation, mental health, aboriginal and community
living skills programs. Even the programs specifically designed for violent offenders,
family violence prevention programs, (HIFVPP, MIFVPP) have a significant
component of their curriculum dedicated towards managing substance addiction.
None of these factors influenced Lovies actions.
Despite being incarcerated for 24 years, no meaningful effort has been made on the
offenders behalf to seek out and enroll in programs. Offender Lovie has completed
only three violence management programs. He has never enrolled in a sexual
offender program despite a clearly unhealthy and sinister view of women (trial
evidence substantiates this claim). Public Safety Canada statistics state there is a
one in four likelihood of recidivism for sexual offenders.
George Harding Lovie has completed the moderate intensity family violence
prevention program. He will use this as evidence today that he is fit to enter society,
but successful completion of this program does not make him less likely to reoffend.
Only one study in Canada has looked at the efficacy of family violence prevention
programs for murderers. This study compared recidivism rates of those who
completed the program and a control group and found no significance difference in
their rates of re-offense when released. Both groups were statistically equal in terms
of their non-violent or violent recidivism rates.
Parole officers surveyed (n> 2,000) were also mixed whether violence prevention
programs were useful or even relevant for life sentence offenders, only 45% agreed
that they had any value. Despite this, the National Parole board favorably grants
discretionary release to homicide offenders who complete these FVPPs over those
who do not. The probability for discretionary release increases by 300% for offenders
who complete violence prevent programs.
It is far more conclusive that the low recidivism rates for homicide offenders are due
to successful drug and alcohol rehabilitation, not due to efficacious violent behavior
modification programs. The low recidivism may also be attributed to the penalties of
additional sentencing; this consequence never inhibited offender Lovie from killing

when he was facing a sexual assault felony charge with a maximum penalty of 15
years prior to the murders. I truly worry that the prediction models and research
being used to assess the recidivism risk of offender Lovie are improperly assuming
that he fits a normal regression.
The fears of the Edwards family are shared by community leaders and by police. The
Hamilton Regional Police is being represented by a detachment from the
department. The Chief of Police has submitted a statement to the National Parole
Board and to the Greater Sudbury Police alerting of the danger. The Hamilton police
were devastated when offender Lovie managed to commit the murders despite being
under light surveillance and after the Family had created a security plan with the
department. I will read their statement now:

In closing, I would like to mention one final statistic. Since 1998, there have been
163 victims murdered by murderers who had been federally paroled by this board.
Every one of those murders was preventable. The 163 signify hundreds of board
hearings where an offender, who fit a profile no different than George Harding
Lovies, succeeded in convincing this board that they posed little or no risk to society.
Please do not make the regrettable decision to add to that statistic.

Thank you for your consideration

Chad Edwards