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Court grants faint-hope application to man who killed woman

A man convicted of hitting a Langley woman over the head with a rolling pin and then strangling her to death will be allowed to apply for parole seven years early. Glen Donald Ekman appeared in B.C.

A man convicted of hitting a Langley woman over the head with a rolling pin and then strangling her to death will be allowed to apply for parole seven years early.

Glen Donald Ekman appeared in B.C. Supreme Court in New Westminster last week for a three-day hearing before a jury. He applied for early parole under the so-called “faint hope clause,” or Section 745.6 of the Criminal Code of Canada.

The section allows offenders serving a life sentence with a parole ineligibility period of more than 15 years to apply for parole after serving 15 years in prison. It was repealed in 2011, but remains available to those sentenced before that date.

Ekman is serving a life sentence for first-degree murder, and his parole eligibility was automatically set at 25 years.

The Crown and defence made a joint recommendation that Ekman be able to apply for parole after serving 18 years in prison, and the jury that heard his application acceded to the recommendation. That means he will be able to seek parole in June 2017.

Ekman was convicted of killing 51-year-old Lia Moore, a friend of his girlfriend’s mother. He was arrested in February 1998, the day after Langley RCMP received a tip that Moore had been murdered. At the time, Ekman was living with his girlfriend and Moore at a townhouse in Langley that was owned by his girlfriend’s mother.

Following his arrest, Ekman gave an incriminating statement to police, during which he admitted that he had planned to drug Moore, suffocate her with a plastic bag and then sell the car she was using. Ekman’s girlfriend drugged Moore’s coffee and after she went to sleep Ekman went to her bedroom. He said he was surprised when Moore sat up in bed, and he hit her with the rolling pin and then strangled her.

At his first trial in 1999, Ekman was acquitted after his police statement was ruled inadmissible. That ruling was overturned by the B.C. Court of Appeal and a new trial was ordered. Ekman appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada, but his application for leave to appeal was dismissed.

Following the second trial, Ekman was acquitted of murder but convicted of attempted murder. Both the Crown and Ekman appealed. The Court of Appeal allowed the Crown’s appeal and ordered a third trial on the charge of first-degree murder. Ekman’s appeal was dismissed.

At the third trial, he was convicted of first-degree murder. He appealed that conviction, but it was dismissed by the Court of Appeal. He went to the Supreme Court of Canada once more, but his application was dismissed.