P.E.I. murderer waives right to parole

A P.E.I. man serving a life sentence for murder has waived his right to a parole hearing.

Gary Gormley, 42, was convicted in 1996 of the second-degree murder of Clifford MacIvor in Charlottetown. MacIvor, a retired schoolteacher, was beaten and strangled with a telephone cord  in his apartment in 1995.

Gormley was eligible for full parole last year, but waived his right to that hearing. In addition to skipping this year's hearing, he's told Corrections Canada he's not interested in having a hearing next year, either.

Gormley has not given a reason for forgoing his right to a hearing. His decision is particularly surprising given Gormley's history escape attempts.

After a jury found Gormley guilty in 1996, he escaped on the way to court for his sentencing, picking the locks on his handcuffs and leg shackles and kicking out the back window of the van transporting him.

Police set up roadblocks and recaptured Gormley hours later, a few kilometres away.

In September, 2007, he escaped from a minimum-security facility in New Brunswick. He hitchhiked to P.E.I. and spent 11 days on the Island before surrendering to RCMP in Stratford.

'Children are the future'

Before his escape, he had been involved with a committee of inmates that worked to keep teenagers out of jail.

"Children are the future, and if you can prevent them from coming to prison and spending their lives in places like this, it's certainly a worthwhile cause," he said in 2004.  

His 2007 escape came as a surprise because a few months earlier he had waived his right to a parole hearing, saying he wasn't ready to be released into the community.

He is now serving his sentence at a facility in Western Canada.

Gormley has never had a parole hearing. As such, there is no public record of how he's been doing in prison, what programs or treatment he's taken, or whether he's accepted responsibility for his crime.

The parole board will automatically schedule another hearing for Gormley in 2013 and, if he changes his mind, he can ask for a hearing at any time before then.