Accused Winnipeg child-killer to stand trial in 25-year-old case.
WINNIPEG - It has been nearly 25 years since Winnipeg teenager Candace Derksen was abducted and killed on her way home from school. Now, the man accused of committing one of the city's most notorious cold-case murders has been ordered to stand trial.
Provincial court Judge Tim Preston has ruled there is sufficient evidence to proceed with a case of first-degree murder against Mark Edward Grant, 44. His decision came following a three-week preliminary hearing. A court-ordered ban prevents specific details that emerged in court from being published. No trial dates have been set.
"It was wonderful to go back in time and feel Candace again. It was as if she was in the courtroom with us," the victim's mother, Wilma Derksen, told the Winnipeg Free Press following Thursday's hearing. "We just think it's a huge gift to even be having this process. After so many years, we'd given up."
Grant was arrested in 2007 after police reopened the investigation into Derksen's unsolved slaying. The 13-year-old girl was grabbed off the street on Nov. 30, 1984, bound with rope and left to freeze to death inside an industrial shed. Her body was found nearly two months later following an exhaustive search.
Court documents show Grant had escaped from jail and was wanted on a Canada-wide warrant at the time of the slaying.
Grant was initially questioned by police but said he had no knowledge of Derksen other than what he had learned from the media.
Three pubic hairs were found on or near Candace's body, although police have said she wasn't sexually assaulted. Four scalp hairs that appeared to have been lightly bleached near the roots were on Derksen's clothing. Police weren't able to test the seven hair strands for DNA until improved technology was available years later.
Police tracked Grant down in 2006 and re-interviewed him about the Derksen case.
Authorities allege the samples of hair and rope offered a match with Grant's DNA.
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