A Canadian man convicted of sexually assaulting and murdering a 10-year-old girl before throwing her body into a lake has been granted unescorted temporary leave from prison, despite being denied parole.
Shane Ertmoed was approved for 60 days of unescorted leave beginning September 2. During that time, he will work with a highly regarded chef while serving a life sentence for the murder of Heather Thomas.
Thomas vanished on October 1, 2000, while riding her bicycle near her father’s townhouse complex in Cloverdale, British Columbia.
Her body was found three weeks later inside a hockey bag that had been retrieved from Alouette Lake, according to Global News.
Ertmoed, who was 24 and working in construction in Surrey at the time, was convicted in 2002 of sexually assaulting and killing the child, the outlet reported.
He lured Thomas to his apartment by claiming he wanted to show her pictures of birds. According to the National Post, he killed her after she resisted the sexual assault.
Following the verdict, Justice Wally Oppal said Ertmoed had been convicted of “the most horrific crime known in law,” according to the Vancouver Sun.
“You murdered a ten-year-old simply to satisfy your sexual desires… You are 220 pounds and she weighed 70 pounds. You used bully tactics and you were not content to just kill her. You had to inflict further indignity on her by dumping her body in the water and torturing the family even more,” Oppal said at the time.
Heather Thomas, 10, disappeared on October 1, 2000, while riding her bike in Cloverdale, British Columbia
Nearly 26 years after Thomas’s disappearance, Ertmoed is now set to spend time outside prison on an unescorted temporary absence.
According to We News, he sought the leave on the grounds of “personal development for rehabilitative purposes.”
The Parole Board approved the request, determining that Ertmoed “will not pose an undue risk” of reoffending, even though his case management team opposed the release.
He was denied parole as recently as last year after being assessed as continuing to pose a risk of serious harm to the community, Global News reported.
The approval includes “reasonable and necessary” conditions designed “to protect society and the victims.” Among them is a ban on contact with Thomas’s family and friends.
Ertmoed is also prohibited from entering more than 30 municipalities in British Columbia, along with several areas in other provinces. He cannot possess or access sexually explicit material, and he may not spend time with girls under 18 unless he is supervised. He is further barred from possessing a personal internet-capable device without prior approval and must disclose any relationship with a woman to his supervisor.
The Parole Board recognized the seriousness of Ertmoed’s crimes but said he had shown progress in treatment and personal rehabilitation.
Ertmoed has also begun taking medication intended to reduce sexual arousal, a treatment he had previously refused, according to Global News.
Justice Wally Oppal said after the verdict was delivered in 2002 that Ertmoed had been found guilty of “the most horrific crime known in law”
During the temporary absence, Ertmoed will live at a community residential facility under 24-hour supervision. He will also continue counselling and other rehabilitation programs.
He is expected to work four-and-a-half-hour shifts five days a week under the supervision of a Red Seal chef, who holds a prestigious Canadian professional certification.
Thomas’s family staunchly opposed the absence, as they have in every parole hearing, citing fears he would re-offend and harm another child.
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‘They do not believe you should have this opportunity and that you should remain in prison until you die,’ the parole board’s summary of their testimony said, according to the Post.
At a parole hearing in 2025, Thomas’s mother Jody Aspin told the Vancouver Sun: ‘I know everything and re-live it in my head daily… Just imagine for one moment before you make any decisions, what if this had been your child?’
The hearing heard Ertmoed questioned about the years leading up to the murder, where he admitted that his attractions began when he was 13 years old but as he got older the girls he fantasized about did not.
He had been arrested in 1998 at 19 years old for sexually assaulting a sleeping seven-year-old girl that he had been babysitting with his girlfriend, the Sun reported.
The charges did not proceed and he instead sought help from a counsellor, but said at the parole hearing that one of his ‘biggest regrets in life’ was not continuing with that counselling, according to the outlet.
Thomas’s body was discovered three weeks later in a hockey bag after it was pulled from Alouette Lake, seen above
When asked about Thomas’s murder, Ertmoed said he did not plan to kill her.
‘All I could see is the immediate gratification at the time,’ he said, saying that when she fought back he ‘decided to murder her.’
Aspin said in a victim impact statement at the time: ‘Every year around the anniversary of Heather’s abduction, rape and murder, Shane Ertmoed… demand(s) yet another privilege he believes he deserves.
‘I am sorry, he does not.’
‘Why is this being allowed?’ she added. ‘Why are the victims not taken into consideration when these requests are being put through? Shane Ertmoed has been victimizing me and my family for the last 24 years. … Every time I get that phone call that there is yet another demand, I am paralyzed with fear.’
Aspin said she often relives the day of her daughter’s death and cries ‘at home, work, grocery stores and the car on a daily basis.’
‘I know he shoved her lifeless body in his hockey bag,’ she said, according to the Sun.
‘And shoved it under the hood of his car until he was out of the complex and around the corner. This action left burn marks on her lifeless body. I know about moving her body from place to place until dumping her in the middle of Alouette Lake with the hockey bag weighed down with rocks.
‘I know everything and relive it in my head daily.’
The board denied his parole at the time, citing that Ertmoed continued to lack understanding of the factors that led to his crimes and was ‘less than vividly honest,’ according to the Sun.
Ertmoed apologized in his closing statement of his 2025 parole hearing, and said: ‘I never want to put anybody else through this process ever again. I just don’t want to hurt anybody else again.’
He had previously been granted escorted absences from prison in 2021 to volunteer with a non-profit organization to clean up parks and trails, the outlet reported.
Just around one week after Ertmoed was granted his 60-day absence, the Parole Board granted the same allowance to Douglas Lambier, a repeat child sex offender who strangled a nine-year-old boy to death in 2005, the Post reported.
Ertmoed was set to begin his temporary absence on Monday, but the date has been postponed due to an unclear reason, according to Global News.