Police and corrections officers are looking for a prisoner who escaped during an escorted temporary absence in Victoria on Tuesday.

Michael Douglas Sheets, who is serving a sentence at William Head for manslaughter and arson, escaped about 1:10 p.m., said assistant warden Anthony Baldo in a statement.

article continues below

Victoria police have been notified and are working to find him.

Sheets was sentenced to 14 years in prison for setting fire to a Calgary home, killing two young children on Nov. 18, 2004.

He pleaded guilty to the charges, saying he and another man were given $120 by a couple who told them to throw a Molotov cocktail through the living room window. The couple wanted revenge against the children’s father. Sheets told a judge he used his $60 to feed his crack cocaine addiction.

Five-year-old Ali Al-Mayahi and his sister, Saja, 4, died in the blaze. Their mother escaped the fire.

Sheets, 44, is five-foot-six and 141 pounds. He has a fair complexion, hazel eyes, grey hair and several tattoos, including a skull and wings, hearts and “4 ever” on his right arm.

Anyone with information about Sheets’s whereabouts is asked to call their local police department.

The Correctional Service of Canada “will investigate the circumstances surrounding this incident and is working with police to locate the offender as quickly as possible,” Baldo said.

Sheets has also served sentences for robbery, theft and obstruction of a peace officer.

His day parole was suspended in September 2014 after he broke his conditions by drinking alcohol and being unlawfully at large. His day parole had been suspended twice before that incident, since his early release in May 2013. Sheets will be eligible for statutory release in November 2017.