MANDEL: Shoeshine boy killer still attracted to adolescents, denied parole for now

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Well done, child sex killer. Cue the applause.

What an alternate reality this is. Here was high praise at the parole board hearing on Thursday for Saul Betesh, 76, who raped and killed 12-year-old Emanuel Jaques in 1977 after he and his two sick buddies kept the terrified boy captive for hours in a Yonge St. apartment above a massage parlour.

Now almost five decades on from his horrific crime, Betesh is lavishly commended for all the progress he’s recently made at his medium-security prison in British Columbia.

He’s not ready for day parole, the board said, but he was assured it’s a “realistic possibility for you in the future.”

The heavy-set Betesh sat in a wheelchair at his hearing — he told board members Patrick Storey and Dave Hunt he’d “cracked” his hip and is recuperating in the prison hospital. According to his case manager, his medical setback has meant no halfway house is equipped to take him now, so while they don’t support day parole, the team is recommending he be moved to minimum security.

He was hoping for more.

Escorted absence granted earlier this year

Earlier this year, Betesh was granted his first escorted temporary absence so he could visit a halfway house for elderly parolees and that step into the outside boosted his spirits. “Basically, I lived in four walls. Occasionally, the door opens and I go out, walk around the yard. This way, I was actually out in the community,” he said. “I think I am ready. The only thing preventing me right now is my hip.”

Betesh got the one-day pass despite still maintaining it was his co-accused who actually killed Emanuel. This panel didn’t ask many details about his crime other than to note his version differs from the official one at his trial where he was convicted of strangling the boy to death.

No one seems to be too concerned that after all these years the child sex killer still doesn’t take full responsibility.

Betesh admitted to being part of a sex ring of men who abused street kids. “I never realized that they didn’t know what they were getting into,” he claimed.

More terrifying, he conceded that he’s still sexually attracted to adolescent boys. But he now has strategies to cope — when he sees half-dressed boys getting their hair washed in TV commercials, he’ll change the channel, listen to music or do his beading.

How could Betesh ever be trusted out of prison when he admits to still being a pedophile?

“I’d hopefully have an escort with me if I stray for the first year or so,” he suggested. “Also the idea about coming back to prison is probably a lot stronger than any urge I would have for intersexual activity and that’s probably because everything now doesn’t work completely.”

So his impotence is supposed to reassure us that he no longer poses a threat?

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Betesh ‘a bit overconfident’ about his prospects

Asked if he had anything to add, Betesh threw in a half-baked expression of remorse: “One of the things I think about is the harm that I caused. I didn’t just harm by killing a young boy. I basically ripped him away from his family — they never saw him grow up, never saw him go to college or anything and that’s all because of that one act.”

The panel told him they found he was “a bit overconfident” to think he could succeed on day parole after just one day on the outside in the last 50 years.

“My past is my past life,” Betesh insisted. “I just want to get a chance to prove I’ve changed. I’m not saying I deserve it. What I did, I should be locked away.”

And so he should.

After a short deliberation, Storey and Hunt turned him down — gently. Despite the “really good, good things” in his progress, the board can’t forget the seriousness of his crime.

“You are not just a property offender. Making a wrong decision in your case could have substantial consequences to someone’s life or well-being,” Hunt said.

So the disappointed Betesh was told he still poses an undue risk for day parole, but should pursue more escorted and eventually unescorted passes into the community. “There’s real opportunities in the future.”

And isn’t that terrifying?

mmandel@postmedia.com

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