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For those of you who missed the articles in the Calgary Herald on May 18, 2008, we have a pdf version available here courtesy of Sherri Zickefoose of the Calgary Herald. The PDF format shows the exact layout in the paper with pictures also. Click on any title below and a new window will open for you to read the paper's copy. We will leave the text version here for those who just want to read.

Cold Cases Probed Part 1
Cold Cases Probed Part 2
A Mother`s Life Sentence
A Mother Pushes Back
A Mother Pushes Back Part 2

Life Sentence, A Mother's Grief
Sherri Zickefoose, Calgary Herald
Published: Sunday, May 18, 2008

Twenty-eight years ago, Evelyn Thompson's daughter Kimmie was snatched off the street on her way to kindergarten by a rapist and drowned in a bathtub. Now, he's applying for day parole and Thompson is fighting back.

Evelyn Thompson covers her Gulf Island living room wall with prized photos of her children, marking major milestones in their lives.

There's son Brad at his high school graduation, and daughter Tina with the family's first grandchild.

And then there's the one child who never grew up.

The sun-faded school picture is her final portrait, taken months before the tiny Calgary schoolgirl was randomly abducted and murdered by a neighbourhood rapist in 1980 -- still one of the most horrifying crimes in the city's history, according to veteran homicide investigators.

"The loss of her is the worst thing that could ever happen. It takes a toll on your whole life," Evelyn says.

"For years, I pushed it away by thinking of what it did to my kids more than to me. I think I'm paying for it now."

The 54-year-old former Calgarian has spent the better part of three decades struggling to overcome feelings of guilt and anguish due to her daughter's death.

Dark circles under her eyes never fade. Tears come easily.

Under the long shadow of the crime, Evelyn Thompson and her family remained imprisoned by the memories of 28 years earlier -- when she was accused by some of playing a role in Kimmie's death, ostracized and eventually forced to abandon Calgary.

And while she lives with a painful past, her daughter's killer is now thinking about his future.

Twice a week, Harold Smeltzer leaves the confines of his minimum security jail in Prince Albert, Sask., to work at a local thrift shop, part of a bid for day parole to be heard by authorities this summer.

Forgiveness remains a long way off from Evelyn, though.

She wants Smeltzer to stay behind bars indefinitely and is preparing for the battle to keep him in jail.

For the first time, Evelyn is writing a victim impact statement to the

National Parole Board and is coming to grips with the crime that unfolded on a snowy street in Altadore almost three decades ago.

She is ready to let her voice be heard in one of Calgary's most horrible crimes, committed by one of its most infamous criminals.

"He put us in a prison, too. People say it's been a long time, let it go," Evelyn says.

"But I don't get parole. She doesn't get parole. She's in the ground."

"I can never get out. Why should he?"

The morning Evelyn sent Kimmie walking to kindergarten alone for the first time, she had an uneasy feeling.

It was Thursday, Jan. 24, 1980.

Altadore Elementary School was six blocks from home. Kimmie's teacher had said she was immature for her age and needed to be more independent.

Despite nagging fears, Evelyn bundled her little girl into a snowsuit for the five-minute stroll and kissed Kimmie goodbye at 8:40 a.m.

The young child didn't get far before she caught the eye of 24-year-old Harold Smeltzer.

He lived a block away with his elderly parents, had only completed Grade 5, and was regarded as slow. Like Kimmie, he was a neighbourhood fixture, playing soccer with young kids on the block and roaming the streets on his bicycle.

He also had dark secrets: for five years, he'd been molesting dozens of children and honing his skills as the neighbourhood rapist. By his own account, he sexually assaulted 40 women and children.

In December 1979, police warned parents about a man they believed was responsible for about 20 attacks on neighbourhood children.

One was a five-year-old Altadore schoolgirl held at knifepoint and molested in a garage after a Brownie meeting.

Two months earlier, Smeltzer attacked a 27-year-old school cleaning woman at night. He also dragged a 17-year-old girl off her back porch, making her wear swimming goggles covered with duct tape. He forced her to perform oral sex.

When he attacked another woman leaving the Alexander Calhoun public library, the goggle strap broke. He ran away.

What drove his deviant sexual desires is unclear. In his mid-teens, he had several run-ins with authorities.

Psychiatrists later diagnosed him a pedophile and said Smeltzer suffered from an anti-social personality disorder.

The one meaningful relationship he had as a teenager left him heartbroken, and with an estranged child. His daughter would have been about five, around the same age as Kimmie --a little girl Smeltzer recognized from the neighbourhood.

When he saw Kimmie playing in the snow that Thursday morning on his way to the Marda convenience store to get a pop, Smeltzer was struck.

"I could get her and have sex with her," Smeltzer said to himself, according to his lengthy confession to police.

Smeltzer followed her until she was near a lane behind his parent's house on 18th Street S.W., where the young child stopped to make snowballs.

He checked to make sure no one was watching and then made his move, running up and grabbing Kimmie from behind.

"I'm going to be late for school," she yelled at him.

To calm her, Smeltzer told the girl he would drive her to class. Instead, he took her by the hand and led her into his parents' home.

He undressed her down to her underpants and took her into the master bedroom where his parents slept.

As Kimmie cuddled and played with the family dog, Mitzi, the man with an IQ of 77 struggled to come up with a plan.

"I didn't know what to do with her," he said.

If he let Kimmie go, she would be able to show police where he lived. He thought about shooting her, or stabbing her -- but that would have made too big of a mess and his mother was expected home soon.

"I didn't want her to suffer. She had to die gently," he said in his confession.

"She's in the tub playing with the water. She's got nothing on, so I got undressed and got in, too," he later explained to police.

"I can make it like a game and gently push her head under water."

As Kimmie struggled, Smeltzer, using both hands, held her head under water until she went limp.

Evelyn Thompson has spent the past quarter of a century waiting for Harold Smeltzer to be set free.

She hasn't heard a word from the National Parole Board, the body responsible for deciding his future, since he was handed a life sentence for first-degree murder with no chance for parole for 25 years.

That was 27 years ago.

"I knew it was coming, I know what 25 years is. I was told I would be kept up to date with anything that happened, but after the trial, there was nothing."

For many years and in many ways, she didn't want to know anything else about the man who took away her child.

Evelyn remained silent for decades. After the five-day murder trial in April 1981 where Smeltzer unsuccessfully pleaded insanity, she eventually ceased talking about Kimmie and her killer.

"I stopped saying anything because nobody gets it," she explains.

"I would start a conversation and I would be cut off. Nobody wanted to hear about it. It nearly killed me. That's why I didn't make friends. You tell them, 'This is how I lost my daughter,' and they look at you like you have your head screwed on backwards."

Indeed, Evelyn has been serving her own life sentence since burying her youngest child.

When first contacted last August to talk about Smeltzer's bid for day parole, her first reaction was fear.

She was in no hurry to speak publicly about the case or re-live the painful ordeal.

But months later, Evelyn felt compelled to talk, ready to unshackle herself from decades of victimization, heartache and regret.

Now, she has a mission: Unable to protect her daughter 28 years ago, Evelyn Thompson is fighting to keep the killer imprisoned.

"My baby doesn't come out of the grave and he wants out, it's just not fair," she says.

"I need to be heard now. I found my voice."

By the time Evelyn was fixing lunch for her children and their cousins, her niece was the first to notice.

"Where's Kimmie?"

Evelyn's eyes snapped to the kitchen clock. It was 12:15 p.m. Kimmie was late.

Evelyn searched the streets and schoolyard. Door knocks and phone calls to neighbours failed to produce any sign of the little brown-haired girl with the missing front tooth.

The kindergarten teacher said Kimmie didn't make it to school. With a cold snap blowing in, Evelyn grew frantic.

She phoned her sister, the only number she could remember.

"It's time to call the police," Evelyn said.

Police began retracing Kimmie's steps and learned she woke her best friend's mother, Hana Sebestyen, on her way to school. Sebestyen was still half-asleep from her nightshift at the Tropicana bar when she opened the door.

"Pauline's already gone. You'd better hurry," Sebestyen told Kimmie.

"If I had just looked when she left. He was on the next corner. I felt so bad. Why did I go back to bed? Why didn't I watch her go through the window?"she recalled in a recent interview.

Every available police officer joined the neighbourhood hunt. City garbage crews looked under porches, in garden sheds and dog houses.

Smeltzer watched from the street as an investigator with a tracking dog sniffed near Kimmie's house.

"I decided I had to get rid of her fast," Smeltzer later told police.

As the hunt wore on, he scooped the body into a garbage bag and carted it away in a toy wagon he carried up from the basement.

Nobody noticed Smeltzer walking down the street, pulling the covered wagon through the freshly fallen snow.

He pulled it for two blocks before dumping the girl's lifeless body into a trash can.

He then erased the wagon tracks in the snow and returned home.

At the same time, the search for Kimmie took police with dogs to the shores of the Elbow River at nearby Sandy Beach.

Evelyn's boyfriend enlisted his army buddies to scour the cliffs and dense brush at River Park.

A citizen band radio club and four-wheel drive groups flooded the police command post, offering help. Kimmie's older brother Brad joined the army searchers along the ridge. The dark-haired Grade 3 boy called out his little sister's name over and over as night approached.

The temperature began dropping, dipping down that night to -12 C. Evelyn numbly sat at home waiting for word.

"I'll never forget that night," said Evelyn. "It was so cold. It was snowing. I just had a feeling."

Kimmie was never coming home.

Evelyn Thompson's only grandchild is a bright spot in an otherwise forlorn life.

She lives for the two-year-old dimpled boy's visits. She laughs as he runs and plays, chasing her little dogs.

As a grandmother, Evelyn can relax. It wasn't so easy raising her two remaining children, Brad and Tina, after Kimmie's killing.

Throughout Evelyn's life, her daughter's murder left her feeling isolated and fearful for her other children.

"I was so afraid that something would happen to the other two. They actually lived in a prison because of my rules and my fear. Mostly my fear," says Evelyn.

"They always had to be with someone, they could never be alone, they had to be together. Even in high school they had to call me wherever they went. I went into a state of panic."

Her oldest daughter Tina recalls living in fear.

"You couldn't trust even people that you might know. I thought that no person besides your family was 100 per cent safe," says Tina, 38.

"I suffered from nightmares for the longest time after it happened. I no longer would sleep in the room that we shared. I was too afraid he knew where I was and would come for me."

For years, Tina contemplated not having her own children because of her baby sister's death. But the birth of her son two years ago has brought the family closer together.

"He will never walk to school alone. And I will most likely be very aware of who he plays with and what he is doing. I will no doubt be overprotective," she said.

"That comes from fear."

A couple walking in the neighbourhood found the dead child at noon the next day.

Kimmie's body was naked and frozen solid, her wet brown hair stiffened into icicles.

The frozen girl's remains offered only the barest of clues.

The medical examiner had to wait a day for the 43-pound body to thaw, and even then, there were no tell-tale bruises or signs to show how the child died.

An autopsy shed less light -- even though she'd drowned, there was very little water in her lungs. The medical examiner concluded she died of asphyxiation.

But two tiny clues spoke volumes to lead homicide detectives Darrell Wilson and his partner, Sid Shields.

A forensic garden flourished inside the green plastic trash bag, linking the killer to the victim.

Little brown dog hairs clung to Kimmie's skin.

And a traceable production serial number was stamped on the garbage bag's seam.

With no suspect or witnesses, the detectives felt the pressure from both police brass and a panicking public to solve the case quickly.

"It consumed my life," said Wilson, then a three-year veteran of homicide investigations.

As the city grew more alarmed by the random child murder, Wilson was clocking non-stop days in the hunt for the killer.

But the officer had another reason to make the collar. His middle daughter was around the same age and bore a resemblance to Kimmie.

Altadore went under lockdown as the days passed into weeks following the slaying.

Parents were terrified. They kept their children indoors and walked them to school. A local father of two immediately donated $200 to a growing reward fund, saying "Who the hell knows where he's going to hit again?"

Smeltzer worried. He knew he had to get rid of the evidence and moved Kimmie's clothes around to various garbage bins. A week after the killing, he settled on a dumpster outside a supermarket.

"The clothes the police are looking for are out behind the store in the blue bin," Smeltzer said to Allwest junior assistant manager Roy Phinney on Jan. 30.

A tiny pair of girls' panties were found inside a bag.

Police examining the clothes found human hairs, dog hair, and carpet fibers.

Evidence was starting to stack up against Smeltzer -- an unemployed 24-year-old still living with his parents.

"The killer wouldn't have left her and the clothes so close to home if he wasn't in the area, too," concluded Wilson.

Now, police had to find a house with a brown dog. Under the guise of checking for unlicensed dogs, bylaw officers and university students whittled down a list of 480 dogs in the area to 100 brown ones.

Detectives began the arduous task of door knocking in Altadore. As they asked questions, they squatted to pet every single brown-haired dog. Then, they carefully walked back to the car and bagged the pet hair samples off their sleeves or pant legs.

With a vicious killer on the loose and no arrests forthcoming, public sympathy evolved into rampant speculation about Evelyn and her boyfriend, Don Irwin -- that somehow they were responsible.

The rumours were so persistent police had to publicly discount them.

Yet, suspicion oozed down into Brad and Tina's school. The kids were taunted so badly by classmates, Evelyn sent them to live with relatives in Saskatchewan.

The South Calgary Community Association refused to hand over the cash donated to help the grieving mother.

After a public backlash, though, the association relented and left the $2,000 cheque on Evelyn's doorstep. She used it to buy Kimmie's grave marker and inscribed it with her nickname, Chicky, and the words: "Our darling little angel."

February went by with no arrests. Then March, April and May passed and pressure built on police.

By June, officers tracked the production number on the garbage bag to a mom-and-pop grocery shop a few blocks away from the crime scene.

Detectives were more convinced than ever that the killer was right under their nose.

They had seized hundreds of garbage bags and plastic clips from homes, including Smeltzer's. However, that serial number was misread by a co-ordinator and never matched up.

Police, however, were back at Smeltzer's door, collecting hair from his family's dog, Mitzi.

But instead of being sent to the Edmonton crime lab, the sample sat ignored in a desk drawer, another in a series of police missteps.

On June 18, police received more bad news.

Two little girls -- ages 10 and 11 -- had been raped at knifepoint.

The assaults took place in Altadore.

To this day, Evelyn Thompson counts the months following her daughter's killing as the worst in her life.

Losing her child was shattering, but being accused of murdering Kimmie was unbearable.

The single mother's bond with her youngest had always been deep and emotional. Evelyn's husband abandoned her when she was six months pregnant with Kimmie.

"I was the only one she had," says Evelyn, who later found love and agreed to marry Don the month before Kimmie died.

By the time the five-day murder trial began in April 1981, Evelyn's family was all she had in the world.

Evelyn sat on one side of the courtroom, while Smeltzer's mother sat on the other; neighbours and mothers divided by evil.

Smeltzer pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Evelyn went on the stand and defended herself as the accused killer's lawyer tried to make her out to be a neglectful welfare mom.

When it was all over, a fresh start with a new life on the West Coast seemed like the answer. Her children, scarred by childhood tormentors and the loss of their baby sister, agreed.

They all thought it would be a new beginning. But life without Kimmie equalled anything but freedom.

Eleven-year-old Mary was silently staring out her mother's car window when she spotted him.

She could never forget the face of the man who dragged her and a friend off their bicycles and into the bushes a week before.

On June 18, 1980, Smeltzer raped both girls at knifepoint.

"Do whatever I say," he said, holding a knife to the tiny blond girl's throat while he clamped a hand over her mouth.

"He came out of nowhere," said Mary.

The girls were agonizingly close to home.

He forced them into the bushes and put a towel over one girl's eyes while he raped the other child. Then he blindfolded her and assaulted the other girl. He ordered Mary to perform oral sex on him. He told both girls if they opened their eyes and looked at him, he'd kill them.

"I peeked," said Mary. "It didn't stop me from telling."

What she saw stays with her to this day: his pimply skin, fleshy round face, and unclean curly hair. The sickening smell of his sour body odor made her retch.

Now, seven days after the attack, as Mary and her mother drove along Elbow Drive near Mission, there he was -- walking along the river with his older sister.

"That's him, that's him!" The words ran together as Mary found the breath to say them.

She reached into her back pocket for a policeman's business card; since the rape, she'd carried it with her every day like a talisman.

Her mother called from a payphone and police cars raced up.

Smeltzer was arrested on the spot. Mary and her mother watched from a distance as Smeltzer calmly climbed into the back of the police car.

Downtown at police headquarters, the new arrival in the interrogation room piqued the curiosity of homicide detectives Shields and Wilson.

"What's this guy look like? Where does he live?" Wilson asked his colleagues.

The homicide detective knew the moment he looked through the peep hole in the door. "This is our guy."

With Wilson playing the role of good cop, the homicide detectives sat down and took a turn questioning Smeltzer.

He readily confessed to raping the two elementary school girls on their bikes the week before. Shields followed his gut and pushed further: "Well, you know, we have to talk about Kimberley."

"Yeah, I know," Smeltzer answered, confirming himself as the little girl's killer.

Smeltzer's surprise confession erupted into a marathon -- it was eight handwritten pages long.

"If you interrupted, he'd say, 'Wait a minute. I'll get to that in a minute.' He wanted to tell it the way he wanted to tell it," said Wilson.

"He remembered every detail of what he did. He was fairly proud of it."

To the officers who'd spent countless hours tracking Smeltzer, only one question remained: Why kill Kimmie?

"I couldn't let her go. She would tell you where I live," Smeltzer told them matter of factly.

When news of the arrest reached Evelyn's family, Kimmie's brother Brad began weeping.

"Don't be mad," he told his mother through tears. "I was playing soccer with him in the park a little while ago."

Mary, meantime, would later receive the reward money for leading police to Smeltzer's capture.

Her rape was worth $38,098.

At home, Evelyn sits at her computer in a room the size of a cell. She often stares out the window into her back garden, imagining the white lillies that will soon spring up.

They remind her of the daughter that never grew up, the innocence of childhood matched by the purity of the flower petals.

The tiny room offers a quiet place to write the parole board, a plea to keep the man she despises behind prison walls.

Summing up a lifetime of heartache is harder than it sounds.

But she hopes that keeping her child's killer behind bars will help free her from years of guilt and grief that began in an Altadore alleyway in 1980.

Evelyn recently took medical leave from another low-paying job. She rarely sleeps through the night. Anxiety and gloom exact a toll.

"He knew what he'd done and he sat in that house. They were blaming everyone . . . they were blaming me, and he didn't come forward," she says.

"I carried guilt for years because I couldn't protect her."

After nearly three decades of maintaining silence, Evelyn is finally ready to be heard.

"I'm going to do everything and anything I can to keep him in prison," she says.

"If it takes until my dying breath I will fight him. He will not be out if I can help it, I tell you."

CHRONOLOGY: HAROLD SMELTZER'S PATH OF TERROR

1972- Harold David Smeltzer moves to Calgary from Montreal at age 14.

1978- OCTOBER 27: Smeltzer attacks a 17-year-old high school student while she is unlocking the back door of her southwest house. He forces her to wear swim goggles covered with duct tape and to perform oral sex.

1979- JANUARY 11: A 27-year-old woman leaving Alexander Calhoun public library after hours is grabbed by Smeltzer. He struggles to put swimming goggles on her, but the rubber strap breaks and he flees. NOVEMBER 30: Smeltzer breaks into Lakeview elementary school and tries raping a 27-year-old night janitor. He threatens to slit her throat and puts a scarf over her eyes.

1980- JANUARY 24: Smeltzer abducts five-year-old Kimmie Thompson as she walks to kindergarten class. He drowns her in the tub of his parents' home and hides her body in a neighbourhood trash can. Her body is found the next day. June 18: Smeltzer rapes two girls aged 10 and 11 as they bike home from Glenmore Dam park.

1980- June 24: The 11-year-old rape victim spots Smeltzer walking on Elbow Drive. Her mother calls police who quickly arrest him. He confesses to the rapes and to the murder.

1981- MAY 1: After a five-day trial, Smeltzer is convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life with no chance of parole for 25 years. Smeltzer also pleads guilty to two counts of rape, three counts of attempted rape, one of gross indecency, and one of possessing a dangerous weapon. He is sentenced 10 years for each rape, two for possessing a dangerous weapon, and five for attempted rape and gross indecency charges -- to be served concurrently. He is sent to the medium-security Saskatchewan Penitentiary.

2003- MARCH: Smeltzer is moved to the minimum security prison at Riverbend Institution. He is awarded unescorted temporary absences to work at a thrift store twice a week, and to attend sex offender maintenance therapy in the community.

2008- SEPTEMBER: Smeltzer is scheduled to appear before the National Parole Board in a hearing to address his application for day parole.

The Calgary Herald 2008

"Why was I the lucky one?"

SHERRI ZICKEFOOSE ~ CALGARY HERALD

A young girl who was raped by child killer Harold Smeltzer ~ and then led police to his capture ~ now braces for the day she’s been dreading for 28 years; his shot at freedom.

"I always wondered how old I'd be when he got out. I used to think, I hope my name's different when he gets out," says Mary, who was attacked by Smeltzer in Calgary in 1980.

Now 38, married and raising a young daughter, Mary leads a fulfilling life. While she's kept the incident a secret, her painful past simmers just below the surface.

The reward cheque and time have done nothing to ease the psychological terror Smeltzer holds over the woman, who turned him in at age 11 after spotting him strolling down a Calgary street one week after the attack.

"There's not one thing I don't remember," she says, grimacing at the flashback.

"I remember his face, I'll never forget his face. For a long time, I even remembered his smell."

Mary spent her youth morbidly wondering why she escaped Smeltzer's murderous clutches with her life, while five year old Kimmie Thompson ended up dead.

"Why was I the lucky one? What made me so special?" she whispers through tears.

Even though she led police to Smeltzer, Mary feels no pride for playing a pivotal role in a killer's capture.

"I never felt like a hero. I don't like being called that."

Instead, she harbours guilt over keeping enough reward money to use for a down payment on her first house. She wishes she'd donated the fund to Kimmie's mother, Evelyn Thompson.

"I hated that money. I didn't deserve it," she says.

"I'm alive and sure it's affected my family. But their family's been ripped apart forever. What I'm going through is nothing compared to what's been done to them."

When she turned 18, the funds became hers.

"It was blood money. I blew it and gave it to anyone who wanted it."

Mary has never completely recovered from her rape. When she went back to elementary school, boys taunted her about enjoying sex.

Her siblings were jealous because of the attention she received at home. Her parents bought her a brand new bed after she was attacked, hoping it would make her feel safe.

Cousins and brothers weren't allowed to roughhouse with her anymore. It left her feeling isolated and lonely.

"They called me the golden child because I was given everything I wanted."

The childhood trauma Smeltzer inflicted on Mary by raping her and a friend at knifepoint has also shaped her adult life.

"I'm the most paranoid person, especially now that I have a daughter" she says.

"I don't trust anyone. I'm so afraid someone will take her."

Mary has spent a lifetime bottling up the hurt, never discussing the attack with anyone, not even her husband.

But upon learning of Smeltzer's bid for day parole, and his claims of sexually assaulting dozens others he was never prosecuted for, Mary has much to say now.

"There's just no way he should be out."

Cold Cases Probed

Sherri Zicklfoose ~ Calgary Herald

A convicted child killer and rapist who wants day parole could be among old offenders facing new charges as Calgary police begin a massive project re-opening unsolved sex assault cases from the past 29 years. Investigators aim to take advantage of new forensic technology. Old evidence will be forwarded to the Edmonton RCMP crime lab for DNA testing that didn't exist years ago.

Police say they will be investigating the claims of convicted Altadore rapist Harold David Smeltzer, who has gone on record claiming responsibility for sexually assaulting 40 victims in a south Calgary neighbourhood during the mid- to late 1970s, according to National Parole Board documents obtained by the Herald. Smeltzer is serving a life sentence for first-degree murder and two counts of rape.

But Smeltzer was never convicted for his claims of sexually assaulting dozens of others between 1975 and 1980.

"You have admitted to sexually assaulting more than 40 young girls over a five-year period," the board wrote in 2006. Smeltzer, 52, is serving his time in Riverbend Institution, a minimum security jail in Prince Albert, Sask.

As Calgary police turn a fresh eye to old cases, Smeltzer's claims will be investigated.

"It would be remiss for us not to consider the circumstances surrounding the claims," said Staff Sgt. Curtis Olson of the sex crimes unit. "We'll assign resources due to the serious nature of the claims -- we'll be assessing and revisiting." Smeltzer is applying for day parole after serving the last 27 years behind bars. His hearing before the National Parole Board is in September. He is serving a life sentence for first-degree murder in the killing of five-year-old Kimmie Thompson. Smeltzer was also convicted of raping two little girls and in other attempts on women before he was arrested five months after the murder. Smeltzer was 24 when he snatched Kimmie on her way to kindergarten in Altadore on Jan. 24, 1980.

He drowned her in his parents bathtub and stuffed her naked body into a garbage can a few blocks from her home. After a massive search, her body was found the next day. Thompson's 1980 murder shocked the city and stumped police for five months -- Smeltzer eluded capture although he was living just blocks away from his victim. He was arrested after an 11-year-old rape victim recognized him walking on Elbow Drive. In court, Smeltzer pleaded guilty to two counts of rape, two counts of attempted rape, acts of gross indecency, break and enter during an attempted rape, and possession of a weapon. Among his victims were a 17-year-old high school girl, a 27-year-old librarian and a 27-year-old school custodian.

With police re-examining scores of unsolved cases, generations of victims are bound to feel shock and the Calgary Communities Against Sexual Abuse is bracing for clients seeking counselling.

"I bet every person is going to respond very differently. For some it could be an amazing catalyst of healing. Others could be put into a state of complete regress, into heavy trauma, and not being able to cope," said Danielle Aubry, a director with Calgary Communities Against Sexual Abuse.

"This kind of trigger, having it re-opened after a number of years, can put people into crisis. It doesn't matter if it happened two months ago (or) 20 years ago," she said. The organization deals with both recent cases and past assaults.

"Anywhere between 50 and 60 per cent of our clients are historical cases. They can be as or more complicated as ones that happened yesterday," she said.

Terrible Crimes Haunt Killer's Family

SHERRI ZICKEFOOSE ~ CALGARY HERALD

Twice a week, Harold Smeltzer toils in the cramped back room of a downtown thrift shop.

The 52 year old sorts and cleans furniture, lamps, and other donations for resale. The work experience is preparing him for the future - one free of incarceration.

His family says they remain torn apart by his past and the shame of his terrible crimes.

Almost three decades ago, he was convicted of killing five year-old Kimmie Thompson, after randomly snatching the child off a Calgary street. "We haven't even told the next generation about this," says one Calgary relative, who didn't want to be named. "It's not something that goes away after 25 years."

Smeltzer's only living supporters are his mother and sister, who live in Ontario. He regularly telephones his widowed mother, now in her 90s.

"He is our flesh and blood. Especially my mom - she had to stand behind him . . . that's a mother's thing," says Smeltzer’s sister, who doesn't want her name published. "You either disown him or you remember he's your child and love him as much as possible."

Smeltzer has not replied to repeated Herald requests for an interview.

The National Parole Board will decide his fate during a hearing to address his application for day parole this September.

Openness and remembering his past are a means of preventing him from committing any further acts of sexual deviancy, the National Parole Board wrote in a recent review of his case.

The board has assessed Smeltzer as a "low risk to reoffend." Smeltzer says he "no longer becomes sexually aroused when seeing children."

"Factors that affected Mr. Smeltzer at the time of his index offense are presently in remission," an institutional psychologist wrote March 15, 2005.

"You describe yourself as a different person today realizing that you will always have to monitor yourself in order for you not to reoffend."

However, he continues to face "issues related to loneliness" and requires a "high level of supervision," the board wrote.

Smeltzer served the first 23 years of his life sentence in Prince Albert's Saskatchewan Penitentiary, a medium-security federal prison. In March 2003, he moved a couple dozen metres over to Riverbend Institution, a minimum-security housing complex.

Smeltzer's troubles began when he was growing up in Montreal, the youngest of four children. He claims he was sexually abused when he was eight, according to the parole board report.

His problems escalated shortly after the family moved to Calgary in 1972. He had repeated run-ins with authorities.

At age 17, Smeltzer got a 14year-old girl pregnant before their two-year relationship ended.

When his family moved to Altadore, he turned the middleclass neighbourhood into a sexual hunting ground.

Although family members say Smeltzer's mother tried to get help for her troubled son, it wasn't enough.

Smeltzer's crimes have had a long-lasting impact on his own family.

"He does have remorse. It's something he does not like but something he can't turn back. It's something we all have to live with for the rest of our lives," says his sister.

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?Kimmie's Law - 2008

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