Lyle and Marie McCann were taking a road trip.

It was the summer of 2010 and the two seniors, just a few weeks shy of their 58th wedding anniversary, had set out in their motorhome from their home in St. Albert, Alta., to visit Chilliwack, B.C.

But Lyle, a long-haul trucker who loved to tell stories, and Marie, who was renowned among her friends for her homemade pies, never arrived.

The McCanns’ burned-out motorhome was discovered at an Alberta campground, and the vehicle they were towing turned up about 30 kilometres away. Their bodies were never found.

Travis Vader, 38 years old in July 2010, was described in court as a desperate drug addict who had killed the couple during a robbery.

In September 2016, Vader was convicted of two counts of second-degree murder.

In October 2016, the judge changed the conviction to two counts of manslaughter after it was revealed that he’d relied on a section of the Criminal Code that had been ruled unconstitutional. In January 2017, Vader was sentenced to one term of life in prison, with parole eligibility in seven years.

However, as a result of time served before his conviction, Vader will be eligible for parole this March — a fact that haunts Bret McCann, one of the McCanns’ three children.

“The one individual who knows where my parents are has said nothing for this whole time,” McCann told a sentencing hearing in December 2016.

“Travis Vader, where are the bodies of my parents?”

Vader, who maintained his innocence throughout the trial and several appeals, has refused to say.

Murder and manslaughter convictions without a body are rare. The McCann case is one of just a handful like it in Canada, reminiscent of the 2017 convictions of Dellen Millard and Mark Smich. The two were sentenced to life in prison for the death of Toronto woman Laura Babcock. Like the McCanns, her body was never found.

Now an Alberta MP wants to make it harder for people like Vader, Millard and Smich to obtain parole.

In September 2017, just months after Vader received his life sentence, Dane Lloyd was vying for the Alberta riding of Sturgeon River—Parkland in a byelection.

Lloyd was familiar with the McCann case. He had been working on updating the criminal code’s various “zombie” clauses — outdated sections like the one the judge in the McCann case used.

Just a month earlier, Australia’s Queensland state had passed a “no body, no parole” law, inspired by multiple cases, including the murder of an 81-year-old grandmother by a man who had hours earlier been released on parole. It was the second Australian state to pass such a law after South Australia.

Inspired, Lloyd reached out to Bret McCann to ask if he would support such a law. McCann, who now coincidentally lives in Australia, said yes.

Lloyd won the byelection, promising to fight for a Canadian “no body, no parole” law, and introduced Bill C-437, or McCanns’ Law, in March 2019. The process was interrupted by the federal election, but Lloyd, newly re-elected, hopes to reintroduce the bill during the new session of Parliament.

The number of cases affected by McCanns’ law would be few, but for the families of those victims, the law could make a huge difference, Lloyd said.

One case he looked at while writing McCanns’ Law was that of Cody Legebokoff of northern British Columbia, considered one of Canada’s youngest serial killers.

Legebokoff was convicted in 2014 of four first-degree murders, three women and a teenage girl, all of whom died between 2009 and 2010. To this day, Legebokoff has not revealed the location of the body of Natasha Montgomery, one of his victims.

He was sentenced to life in prison with no parole for 25 years, meaning he will be eligible for parole in 2035.

In Eastern Canada, a GoFundMe page active since June 2017 tells the story of Taylor Samson, a Dalhousie University student who went missing in 2015. Though Samson’s body was never found, fellow student William Sandeson was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison, with parole eligibility after 25 years.

The fundraiser, set up by a family friend, asks the public to help Samson’s mother, Linda Boutilier, continue the search for her son’s body.

As Sandeson was escorted from the courtroom following his sentencing, The Canadian Press reported that Boutilier shouted after him: “Where’s Taylor, Will?”

McCanns’ Law would put “more tools in the tool box” for judges sentencing these kinds of cases, said Lloyd. However, he stressed that the law would not be as absolute as it sounds.

“We’re not saying that if there’s never a body, there’s never a parole,” he said, adding that the law is often misunderstood. Some critics have said it could be too absolute, or could result in longer sentences for wrongfully convicted people. Lloyd said all of this has been taken into consideration.

“The ‘no body, no parole’ thing really sticks in people’s minds,” he said. “It’s easy to explain, and it’s easy to attack. However, the law that I’m putting forward is much more nuanced.”

According to Queen’s University assistant law professor Lisa Kerr, for those convicted of first-degree murder, a life sentence with no parole for 25 years is automatic, with the potential for consecutive periods of parole ineligibility in cases with more than one victim.

In second-degree murder cases, the sentence is still life, but with more flexibility in terms of parole ineligibility. It’s only in manslaughter cases that the judge can actually decide the length of the sentence, Kerr said.

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In sentencing, Bill C-437 would give the judge a discretionary clause with which to extend the period of parole ineligibility, explained Lloyd. Right now, people convicted of manslaughter or second-degree murder are usually eligible for parole once one third of their sentence has been served. Those who are sentenced to life imprisonment for manslaughter would normally be eligible for parole after seven years, as Vader is.

With McCanns’ law, Lloyd wants judges to be able to extend a convicted parole ineligibility to one half of their sentence or 10 years, whichever is less, said Lloyd.

The law, which would also apply to people convicted of aiding in murder or manslaughter, could also be used by parole boards to justify denying someone parole, Lloyd said.

“The key word here is ‘discretion,’ ” he said, adding that the law is intended more as an incentive or deterrent than as an additional punishment.

“I want to have something that’s novel, and something that I think will create the leverage in the judicial system to have closure for families,” he said. “It’s not about punishing the criminals. It’s about giving them an incentive to co-operate.”

However, Kerr said that functionally, Bill C-437 wouldn’t change much.

In second-degree and manslaughter cases, the judge already has discretion when it comes to the period of parole ineligibility, she said — in manslaughter cases, a court can order a ten-year period instead of seven, taking a number of factors into consideration including concerns of rehabilitation and deterrence.

“The Criminal Code already has given judges the power to delay parole in exactly that way,” she said, adding that the court may consider a number of factors in that decision. Bill C-437 would, in effect, simply add the failure to divulge information leading to discovery of remains as a specific factor in this kind of decision.

“It’s drawing the judge’s attention to one factor over others,” Kerr said.

And when it comes to the parole board, she said failure to disclose the location of remains is already likely an important factor in their decision, so Bill C-437 would merely direct the parole board to consider it.

“The parole board already has a very broad mandate to assess risk when they’re making release decisions, and I can tell you that an offender who refuses to take responsibility, who hasn’t disclosed the details of their offence ... that person is not going to do well in front of the parole board,” she said.

Bills like C-437 often come about because of particularly “distressing” cases such as the McCanns’, Kerr noted. She agreed that the bill could, in some cases, provide an incentive for defendants to divulge information in exchange for a lighter sentence.

Travis Vader has already been sentenced, but Lloyd said if McCanns’ Law is passed in time, it could affect Vader’s chances of being approved for parole.

Though he is eligible for parole in just over two months, McCann said he hasn’t heard of Vader applying just yet.

But it’s not just about Vader anymore, he said.

“It gives some homage to my parents, and some point to the tragedy that befell them,” McCann said. “If there can be some positive thing that comes out of it, then that would be really nice.”

Lloyd agreed, adding that he has faith in the legal system to use McCann’s Law as needed.

“I believe ... the vast majority of judges and parole board members do not want to see families live with the trauma of not knowing what happened to the remains of their loved ones,” he said. “I believe that, given these extra tools, that they will use their best judgment to do the right thing.”

Canadian cases with convictions of murder or manslaughter without a body are rare. Here are six that captured the public’s attention:

1. Toronto-area woman Laura Babcock disappeared in July 2012. Though her body was never found, Dellen Millard and Mark Smich were convicted of first-degree murder in Dec. 2017. The pair were also convicted of killing Tim Bosma, a Hamilton man who went missing in 2013. Millard was also convicted of first-degree murder in the death of his father.

2. Natasha Lynn Montgomery is one of four victims killed by Cody Legebokoff of northern B.C., considered one of Canada’s youngest serial killers. He was convicted in 2014 of four first-degree murders, three women and a teenage girl, all of whom died between 2009 and 2010. To this day, Legebokoff has not given up the location of Montgomery’s remains.

3. Taylor Samson, a Dalhousie University student, went missing in 2015. Though Samson’s body was never found, fellow student William Sandeson was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison, with parole eligibility after 25 years.

4. The story of Scarborough’s Robert Baltovich is perhaps one of Canada’s most well-known cases of wrongful conviction. Baltovich was convicted in 1992 for the murder of his girlfriend Elizabeth Bain, whose body was never found, and spent almost a decade in prison before he appealed and was granted a retrial that found him not guilty.

5. Doug Snider, a doctor in the small town of Fairview, Alta., went missing in May of 1999. Fellow doctor Abraham Cooper was convicted of manslaughter in 2000, despite Snider’s remains never being found. Cooper was released in 2008.

6. Antiques collector Hugh Sinclair of Toronto disappeared in July of 1999. Timothy Culham was convicted in 2001, before Sinclair’s remains were found in 2002.

With files from The Canadian Press and Claire Theobald

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