Releasing Violent Psychopaths

"You were looking for care and affection. When you felt rejection you meant to hurt as much as you wee hurting."
"You were carrying a lot of rage that made you snap at times."
"Your crimes were so serious that you should carry with you at all times the horror of what you did."
"You face many more years of incarceration ... which will give  you the benefit to continue to better yourself in a secured environment."
Parole Board of Canada, granting 47-year old violent rapist William Shrubsall full parole

"I think we passed the buck on it. I think that someone needs to answer why this happened. I guess that's what we're looking for is if you read the parole board decision, it doesn't make sense."
"If the parole board had stated this individual is clearly rehabilitated and he's unlikely to re-offend in the future, then that's one thing, but that's not what it says. It just leaves a lot of questions as to what their thought process was."
"I deserve better as a victim, his past victims in the United States deserve better and so do the Canadians and the Americans that have been affected by this individual. I felt like I was being revictimized all over again."                                                                                                                 "As victims of violent crime, that's your only comfort, to know your government has sought justice for you and put somebody behind bars. And then to find out we had the opportunity to keep him in there, and to keep the public safe and we failed to do it, is a bit of a hard pill to swallow. He'll weasel his way into making people trust him and then he'll have a whole other set of victims that could have been prevented,. That's what makes me really sad."                                             K.C., former girlfriend, Halifax, Nova Scotia victim of William Shrubsall

"In the 10 or 15 years prior to his designation as a dangerous offender, there were many, many victims and since his designation as a dangerous offender, there have been zero."
"My concern at this particular point is that an opportunity, or potential opportunity, has been created to start adding to his list of victims, which I think is very unfortunate."
"I have seen and heard nothing over the last 18 years [while Shrubsall has been in prison] that suggests he has changed his behaviour."
"There is no explanation for that logic [of the parole board]. This is the triumph of hope over reason." 
Paul Carver,  chief Crown attorney, Halifax region

"The last thing I remember is when he grabbed me and I said, 'Oh my Jesus'."
"And the next thing I remember is when I was trying to walk home after the attack because my eyes were swollen shut and I remember just trying to turn my head enough to see, get some vision so I can get home."
"And then the next two trials he cowered with his head down when I testified because he knew he had no power over me."

"I had anxiety, I had depression, suicidal thoughts and I dealt with it by seeing a psychologist for many years. And I pride myself in helping others now."
Tracy Jesso, Halifax rape victim

"They said that their system had done everything that they could for him — that nothing about his status was going to change — and they were going to send him back to the states to fill out his sentence here."
"I find that concerning because ... he went on to get three violent convictions there for very disturbing behavior,"
"We will do everything that we can here in Niagara County to keep him in jail as long as possible." 
Niagara County District Attorney Caroline Wojtaszek, New York

Tim Fenster / Reporter     William C. Shrubsall will begin serving a 2 1/3-to-7 year prison sentence for his 1996 conviction of sexual abuse in an attack on a 17-year-old girl in Niagara Falls. Shrubsall spent nearly 20 years in a Canadian jail for a series of violent assaults on women in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Shrubsall was also convicted of murdering his mother with a baseball bat in 1988, but received only 16 months in jail because he was a minor.

William Shrubsall, denied parole in Canada four times since 2012, was born in Niagara Falls, New York. His high school graduation took place in 1988, and he was an honours student. He failed to attend the graduation ceremony. At that time he was in the custody of police. He had used a baseball bat the night before graduation to kill his mother, telling his girlfriend at the time that her death at his hand was "no big thing". Because his mother had been abusive, he was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 16 months in prison.

He came to Canada in 1996 to escape charges of sexual assault in New York, and changed his name legally to Ethan Simon Templar MacLeod. Under a new identity he settled into Halifax, Nova Scotia, and there resumed his violent sexual predations on Canadian women where in February of 1998 he used a baseball bat to beat a 24-year-old clerk in a knitting shop into a coma. Her skull had to be reconstructed with 12 metal plates and 50 screws.

A 19-year-old woman was attacked walking home three months later, her face repeatedly smashed into an asphalt driveway. It took another month before he swung into action again, inviting a woman to his room, choking her to unconsciousness when she refused sex with him. The attack was stopped by neighbours. He stalked former girlfriends, bilked churches of money, was incarcerated for his crimes as a dangerous offender, sought parole which was repeatedly denied. "You are noted to be able to camouflage your deviant behaviours", one parole denial stated.

Against the emphatic advice of the Correctional Service of Canada recommending against parole, where the agency warned the man's risk of violent sexual assaults remained "high", while his potential to reintegrate into society was "low", the parole board proceeded to give Shrubsall full parole. While in prison he had distributed pornography, had "unauthorized communications and items delivered to a female inmate" and was linked to "stalking issues around female correctional staff". 

So despite that the parole board felt that William Shrubsall remains an "undue risk" to society, they 'trusted' he would undergo a positive change, magically, once his U.S. prison sentence estimated between two-and-one-third to seven years, was completed. This, for a man who received an indeterminate prison sentence in 2001, when a judge in Nova Scotia ruled that should this man ever regain freedom it would without doubt result in more dead, injured and psychologically scarred female victims.

William Shrubsall's 1995 police mug shot.   Niagara County Sheriff's Office