A B.C. man convicted of murdering his friend's mother and grandmother in a scheme to secure millions in inheritance money has been denied parole.
Derik Christopher Lord was just 17 years old when he and 16-year-old David Muir bludgeoned and stabbed Sharon Huenemann and Doris Leatherbarrow to death in 1990. The two women were the mother and grandmother of the boys' friend, 18-year-old Darren Huenemann.
Lord is now serving a life sentence at Matsqui Institution in Abbotsford, where he was denied both day and full parole in a hearing Friday. Parole board members ruled that releasing him would cause an unacceptably high risk to the public.
Leatherbarrow's brother John Kriss said he was "extremely happy" with the board's decision.
"I know you can't trust this individual. He's not to be trusted ever, and he's capable of doing anything to anybody. He's got no feelings at all," Kriss told reporters.
"I'm in favour of keeping this guy in there forever."
Lord continues to deny responsibility for the murders. All three boys say they were in Victoria when the women were murdered while preparing dinner in Leatherbarrow's Tsawwassen home.
"I wasn't involved in it. I wasn't on that side of the water when it happened," Lord told the parole board, but was only able to give vague details of his activities on the day of the murders.
He told the board that he wishes to have a quiet life with his infant son, and hopes to work as a carpenter if he ever gets out of prison.
"I have a beautiful wife and son that I want to get home to," Lord said.
He became eligible for full parole in 2002 and has been granted occasional escorted temporary passes by the prison warden. He will be eligible to apply for parole again in two years.
Leatherbarrow's fortune was estimated at between $3 and $4 million at the time of her death. With her and her daughter out of the way, Darren Huenemann would be the sole heir to the riches.
The three boys were convicted on two counts each of first-degree murder in 1992. The trial showed that Huenemann had offered his friends a car, house and monthly salary for carrying out the murders.
The two women had invited Lord and Muir over for dinner on the night they were killed. The table was set for four when the boys bashed them over the head with crowbars until they were unconscious and then cut their throats with kitchen knives.
The boys tried to make it appear as though the women had been murdered during a robbery, but police found that money, jewelry and other expensive items had been left untouched.
With files from CTV British Columbia's Michele Brunoro
