Article content continued

“Why he walked away is not clear,” he said. “Hopefully over the next few days we’ll have a better idea.”

The Ontario Provincial Police dispatched its Repeat Offenders Parole Enforcement Team (ROPE) to both Kingston and Brantford, where Maracle’s family lives. Kingston Police were also looking for him. As of 6 p.m. Monday, he was still at large.

In just over a year at Henry Traill, Maracle didn’t raise flags. While he wasn’t employed in Kingston, he was undergoing treatment and behaviour management programs in the community, Wheeler said.

Why he walked away is not clear. Hopefully over the next few days we’ll have a better idea.

The Parole Board of Canada, however, raised concerns that Maracle was still “fantasizing about minor females.” Before he went to the Henry Traill centre in 2015, the parole board put a number of conditions on his release, including a ban on being in the presence of girls under 16 years old or anywhere children are likely to congregate.

“With your minimal and untested gains, and continued fantasies about young females, to release you without residency (at Henry Traill) would not be in the interest of the protection of society,” the parole board wrote.

Police in Kingston warned residents to “remain vigilant” on Monday, pointing to Maracle’s criminal history, which reportedly includes three sexual assault convictions. In 1997, he grabbed a 14-year-old girl as she was walking to school in Brantford, 40 kilometres west of Hamilton. He pressed a gun to her head and took her to three locations where he raped her repeatedly.