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Killer-rapist on the run after walking away  
JUSTINE HUNTER  
 
From Friday's Globe and Mail  
 
April 25, 2008 at 5:16 AM EDT  
 
VICTORIA — Six days ago, Blane MacDougal, whose criminal record includes murder, escaping custody, indecent assault, rape, kidnapping and sexual assault with a weapon, slipped away from a minimum-security jail in the Fraser Valley.  
 
He has vanished so thoroughly that police yesterday were left to appeal to the dangerous offender's "goodwill and conscience" to turn himself in.  
 
The RCMP have dozens of officers searching for him, but say to date they have had no leads - not even the false sightings that typically come with such manhunts.  
 
"At this time our appeal is directly to Mr. MacDougal himself, to do the right thing and turn himself [in]," said Inspector Pat Walsh, the head of the RCMP detachment in Mission, B.C., about 70 kilometres east of Vancouver.  
 
Insp. Walsh said Mr. MacDougal is considered dangerous and could be anywhere.  
 
"We're half an hour from the border, he could have gone into the U.S. Honestly, we don't know. There have been no sightings of him, which is unusual."  
 
If Mr. MacDougal's conscience isn't enough of an incentive, Insp. Walsh said he hopes the threat of being caught will persuade the fugitive to turn himself in.  
 
"Our message to him would be: We are looking for you: it's only a matter of time before we find you."  
 
On April 19, Mr. MacDougal, who is serving a life sentence and is a designated dangerous offender, was reported missing from Ferndale Institution, an unfenced jail next to Mission's city hall.  
 
Mr. MacDougal's criminal record spans decades.  
 
In 1968, serving time for property offences, he escaped custody and fled to the United States in a stolen car.  
 
There, he and another man committed three robberies of gay men they picked up in bars. The pair left one of their victims tied up in a field, where he died of exposure.  
 
Mr. MacDougal was convicted of murder with malice and served 10 years in Texas before being transferred into the Canadian corrections system in a prisoner swap in 1978.  
 
The following year, he was granted day parole.  
 
In a single day, he kidnapped and raped two young women, one of them at knifepoint.  
 
In between, he casually picked up his girlfriend from work, and then dropped her off at her home before returning to his own home to continue his sexual assault of one of his victims.  
 
He was granted parole again in 1989.  
 
He purchased a rape kit that included handcuffs. He attended a sex-offender relapse-prevention group meeting, and several hours later kidnapped and raped another young woman over a period of hours.  
 
He was then designated a dangerous offender but, according to the accounts provided at a later parole hearing, "cascaded down" to a minimum security facility because of his good behaviour.  
 
Mr. MacDougal once again proved adept at deceiving corrections officials about his progress.  
 
While attending sex-offender treatment programs and winning support that would have led to further unescorted passes from jail, he was caught in 2003 with more than 20,000 pornographic images and materials in his personal computer.  
 
Nevertheless, Mr. MacDougal once again worked his way back into a minimum-security facility roughly three years ago.  
 
At a parole hearing last October, board members rejected day parole for Mr. MacDougal. "You are rated as a high risk to reoffend with sexual violence," the six-member panel concluded.  
 
Dave Lefebvre, Correctional Service Canada spokesman, could not say how many dangerous offenders are serving time in minimum-security facilities. There are nine such offenders in the Ferndale facility.  
 
The corrections system is reviewing the case but there is nothing to block dangerous offenders from being settled in minimum-security facilities, Mr. Lefebvre said.  
 
"When it comes to security classifications, there are three main criteria: Risk of escape, risk for public safety and the level of adjustment the offender has shown in the institution," he said.  
 
Mike Farnworth, the B.C. NDP justice critic, said that policy must change.  
 
"I find it absolutely outrageous that you could have a dangerous offender in a minimum security facility," he said.  
 
"The federal government needs to conduct a full review. And the provincial government should be saying clearly that this is unacceptable."  
 
Mr. MacDougal is six feet tall and weighs approximately 164 pounds.  
 
He is balding with brown hair and brown eyes and is white. He has a tattoo dragon on his chest and speaks English.