It came as no surprise — from the start of the hearing, Eaton Centre killer Christopher Husbands was told that he wasn’t going to be released on any kind of parole or unaccompanied absence from Collins Bay prison.
There was some mysterious confidential “security intelligence information” that had come to light about the 36-year-old prisoner in late 2024 that put the kibosh on any parole because his risk is considered “unmanageable” — but what it was about couldn’t be disclosed.
“I actually have no idea what that is about,” Husbands told the parole board. “I had a thought that there could have been one incident, but I feel like I know that I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Dressed in a blue pullover and jeans, the eloquent but nervous inmate began his hearing that while he knew his chances were zero, he thought it would be a useful exercise to make his first attempt at the “mountain” that he’s been so afraid to scale.
“I understand,” Husbands told the board when they delivered its foregone conclusion after the two-hour hearing Friday. “Thanks for being here.”
Husbands is serving a life sentence for two counts of manslaughter and five of aggravated assault, criminal negligence causing bodily harm and reckless discharge of a firearm in the infamous June 2012 Eaton Centre shooting.
Ahmed Hassan, 24, and Nixon Nirmalendran, 22, were killed when Husbands unleashed 14 bullets in the busy food court, despite being on bail at the time on charges of sexual assault with conditions that he not have any weapons and remain under strict house arrest.
One of the many injured was 13-year-old Connor Stevenson, who had to undergo six painful surgeries, including one that removed a third of his skull to extract the bullet from his brain, leaving him with permanent brain impairment, excruciating headaches and the constant fear that any blow to his head could be fatal.
At Husbands’ first trial, he was convicted on two counts of second-degree murder and sentenced to an automatic life term with no eligibility for parole for 30 years. But a legal technicality — a trial judge’s error in the method of jury selection — won him a second trial.
At his retrial, the jury rejected Husbands’ claim that he wasn’t criminally responsible because he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after an ambush four months earlier by Nirmalendran and his cohorts that left him with 20 stab wounds. Jurors did, however, acquit him of second-degree murder and convicted him instead of the lesser offence of manslaughter.
