Twenty years ago today, Stephen Arnold Ford hacked his parents to death with an axe in their family home north of Calgary.
Today Ford, 37, starts a new life in Victoria as a free man. In May, the National Parole Board approved his full release after two years in a halfway house here.
He will try to live as normal a life as he can, finding work -- he was laid off from his job as a web developer in January -- holding down a relationship and maybe building a family while living with the memory of what he did to his family.
News of Ford's full parole is unsettling for his parents' Airdrie neighbours.
Mike and Rosemary Church were among neighbours who awoke to the chilling screams of Ford's parents, Kathleen and Stephen, at 5:30 a.m. Aug. 1, 1989.
"I hope it's the beginning of better things [for] him but it's not the end for anybody, really," said Mike Church. "It's certainly not the end for us, his sister and the aunts and uncles. Our loss goes on."
Church, however, said Ford's parents would want him to have a second chance at life.
"I would think they would be praying to God now that he's out, he'll make something of his life -- just like when they were alive. They were always encouraging and loving."
Ford and his girlfriend of 10 months, Lisa Baergen, declined an interview, saying Ford's one promise to his sister is that he avoid the media spotlight. Still traumatized, Ford's sister Jennifer has refused to have contact with her brother.
But Rudy and Louise Froese, who live in Fort Saskatchewan, Alta., and became friends with Ford in the early 1990s, said they're happy Ford will get to start over and live a productive life in Victoria.
"There is such a thing as a second chance," said Rudy Froese.
"I'm sure at night when he lies awake he wonders what it would be like to have a mom and dad. I'm glad he's there [in Victoria] and not here in Airdrie," he said, because of the publicity surrounding the case.
The Froeses visited Ford regularly for several years during his time in Edmonton's maximum security prison and then at the medium-security facility in Drumheller, Alta.
"He loved talking about our family," said Louise Froese, who said she came to consider Ford as a son. "He would ask how our kids were doing."
In May, the two were in touch with Ford, who said to them in an e-mail: "My life is complicated but every moment brings me closer to the life I've wanted for a long time."
In its May 6 decision to approve Ford's full release, the National Parole Board wrote that Ford's risk to reoffend had not elevated and his continued presence in the community did not present an "undue risk."
Victoria police said they will not issue a public notification of Ford's release because he is not a high-risk offender.
Statistically, those who commit murder are at low risk of committing another violent offence, said Kelly Sundberg, a criminologist at Mount Royal College in Calgary.
"People who commit a homicide don't normally commit another one. It's a one-time thing," Sundberg said.
"I have more concern over people who have habitual criminal activity, who are in and out of that revolving justice door than someone who's been in the system for 20 years."
During his parole, Ford must stick to the conditions of his release: that he abstain from intoxicants, continue counselling and avoid contact with his sister.
His parole officer told the board he met his conditions during his day parole, except once when he had a beer with friends.
Ford's life sentence means he will have to keep regular contact with his parole officer for the rest of his life.
He was 17 on Aug. 1, 1989, when, in a violent rage, he killed his father Steve, 38, and mother Kathleen, 37, inside their Airdrie, Alta., bedroom. He hacked them more than 20 times each with an axe.
He fled the province in his parents' car, leaving sister Jennifer, then 15, to find the bloodied bodies.
Leading up to the crime, Ford was a destructive teen who abused drugs and alcohol, attempted suicide and committed crimes for the thrill of it.
He was tried as an adult, convicted of two counts of second-degree murder, and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of full parole for 20 years.
Ford, who is tall with a sturdy build and close-cut brown hair, told the parole board during the May hearing in Victoria that he and Baergen plan to move into a two-bedroom apartment together, where he can have a home office to work on web development.
He said he has been up front with Baergen's family and close friends about his past.
"If someone asks me then I'm going to be honest with them," Ford told the parole board.
"It's hard to hear people stand in judgment of you but let's be honest, I've got it coming. It's part of the life I've made for myself."
According to parole documents, Ford evolved from a remorseless, self-pitying heroin addict during his early years in jail into someone willing to take responsibility for his crime, get an education and participate in correctional programs.
David Johnson, executive director of Victoria's John Howard society, wouldn't speak directly about Ford -- who, according to parole documents, has been looking for work through the society's job-placement agency -- but he said offenders often get more community support when they move to a city where the crime wasn't splashed across media headlines.
"If they are in a new community, the individual feels that they have a bit of a fresher start," Johnson said.
"But they have to live with what they did every day."
-- with files from Sherri Zickefoose, Calgary Herald
