HOPE, BC
Saturday, Dec. 6th
The Hope
Standard Office: 604.869.2421 www.hopestandard.com
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2014
news@hopestandard.com
A6 NORDIC SKI AREA
IS NOW OPEN
Manning Park trails are ready for cross-country racing and training
A15 CHRISTMAS
CONCERT IN HOPE Jenny Banai and Christine Schroeder perform an acoustic show Dec. 7
Inaugural meeting A16 BASKETBALL
SEASON UNDERWAY Senior girls prepare for weekend tournament in Agassiz this weekend
INSIDE
$
1(PLUS GST)
Mayor Wilfried Vicktor (above) and the new Hope council were sworn in on Monday night during the inaugural meeting by Judge Kenneth Skilnic. More than 80 people were in attendance at Hope Cinema to see council take the oath of office. During his inaugural speech, Vicktor stressed the importance of respect at the council table over the next four years. He also said council should work towards predictable tax increases for the public, set specific goals and timelines, and work with the community to foster volunteers.
Hope connection to murder case
Vikki Hopes Black Press
Opinion . . . . . . . . . . A8 Community . . . A11 Sports . . . . . . . . . A16 Classifieds . . . A18
KERRIE-ANN SCHOENIT / THE STANDARD
A judge sentencing Garry Taylor Handlen in 1979 to 18 years in prison for a violent rape declared him a “menace to society” and said Handlen’s record of sexual offences was appalling. Handlen, now 67, was arrested last Friday in Surrey and charged with the first-degree murders of KathrynMary Herbert, 11, of Matsqui (which later amalgamated with Abbotsford) in 1975 and Monica Jack, 12, of Merritt in 1978. Police made the announcement at a press conference on Monday in
Surrey, where they said that Handlen, recently living in Ontario, had been a “person of interest” early in the investigations into the two murders, but it had taken this long to gather enough evidence to support charges. They confirmed that Handlen has a criminal record, although they wouldn’t expand on his background or on the evidence that led investigators to him as a suspect. A Vancouver Sun newspaper article indicates Handlen was sentenced to five and a half years in jail in November 1971 for raping an 18-yearold woman in Comox on Vancouver
Island. He was living in Courtenay at the time. Other articles detail the trial and sentencing of Handlen in 1979 for the rape of a 21-year-old Quebec woman on Sept. 11, 1978. Handlen, living in New Westminster at that time, had picked up the woman while she was hitchhiking near Hope. The woman testified that Handlen pulled over at a rest stop near Manning Park. There, he grabbed her around the neck from behind and dragged her into the woods, where she tried to fight him off as he choked and raped her.
She was able to escape and flag down a vehicle on Highway 3. The couple in the vehicle saw Handlen’s car leave the rest stop and put out a call on their CB radio, leading other drivers to obtain his licence number. The victim identified Handlen in a police lineup and was able to point out his car, which police had parked among about 300 other vehicles in a mall parking lot. During the trial, Crown counsel Wally Oppal pointed out that Handlen had served prison terms for rape, indecent assault, and assault with intent to commit rape.
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