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Vince Li

Although he now calls himself Will Baker, Li was in the depths of untreated schizophrenia in 2008 when on a Greyhound bus in Manitoba he stabbed seatmate Tim McLean to death and began mutilating and eating the corpse. One of the first RCMP officers on the scene would later take his own life in part because of the trauma. Baker was found not criminally responsible for the murder, and in 2017 was granted an absolute discharge from psychiatric care, effectively removing any ability for the justice system to monitor his movements and actions. Carol de Delley, McLean’s mother, vigorously opposed the release, saying there was no way to ensure that Baker wouldn’t forsake his medication and kill again. “I don’t believe for one second that Will Baker poses no threat,” she said in a statement.

Photo by The Canadian Press

Karla Homolka

Homolka is easily the most notorious Canadian murderer who has walked free. Along with then-husband Paul Bernardo, she participated in the 1991 abduction, rape and murder of two Ontario schoolgirls, Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy. Homolka received a lesser sentence of manslaughter as a result of a deal she struck with prosecutors and was out of prison by 2005. In 2012 she was found to be living a new life as a mother of three in the Caribbean and in 2017 she was found to be volunteering at a Montreal elementary school.

Photo by Postmedia File

Bill Nichols

At the tail end of a string of violent crimes in 1976, Bill Nichols murdered Calgary Police officer Keith Harrison, a father of two teenaged boys. Nichols was initially set to face the death penalty, but following federal abolition of capital punishment he instead became the first Canadian to be convicted of first-degree murder and was handed a sentence without parole eligibility for 25 years. Nevertheless, under the faint hope clause he was given day parole by 1993 and was on full parole by 1996. “Our justice system provides unbelievable support and assistance to the offenders, and couldn’t give a rat’s ass about the victims,” one of Harrison’s friends wrote in a 2001 letter to Postmedia.