The Parole Board of Canada has ordered a review into a September 2019 decision to deny Derik Lord day parole.
After 27 years behind bars, Lord, one of three teenagers convicted in a grisly Tsawwassen double murder in 1990, was denied day parole following a hearing last September, but on Jan. 24, the Parole Board of Canada Appeal Division ordered a panel hearing to review Lord’s day parole release.
“The Appeal Division finds that the Board did not demonstrate how it weight your release plan and considered your release plan responsiveness to your unique needs and circumstances as an Indigenous offender,” wrote the Board in its decision. “The Appeal Division is also ordering that the decision of September 10, 2019, remain in effect until the new review has been concluded.”
A date has not been set yet for the review.
Lord continues to insist he is innocent and remains incarcerated at the Matsqui Institution in Abbotsford.
Lord and David Muir were hired by Darren Huenemann to kill his mother and grandmother, Sharon Huenemann and Doris Leatherbarrow, in a murder-for-hire plot for an inheritance.
All three were convicted in 1992.
The three teens lived in Saanich at the time of the murder and at trial the prosecution argued that on Oct. 5, 1990, Huenemann and his girlfriend dropped Lord and Muir off at the ferry terminal.
The pair then went to Leatherbarrow's Tsawwassen home and, after being invited in for dinner by the two women, bludgeoned and stabbed them to death. The two teens then took the ferry home and were picked up by Huenemann and his girlfriend.
Lord, now 46, and Muir were both sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 10 years. Huenemann received a life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.
After his conviction, Muir, who pleaded not guilty at trial, admitted his role in the murders and has been out on parole for over a decade. He was granted day parole in April 2002 and full parole a year later.
Huenemann two years ago appeared before the parole board at his Quebec prison for the first time where his parole request was denied.
