As I mentioned previously, it took me a long time to write my victim statements so that I could read them in front of the Parole Board, and I felt like I was getting into a bad state, going over and over again and trying to figure out what I should be submitting, so I decided to just submit them. They're not at a point in their incarceration that they would be eligible for parole anyway. To make it easier on myself, I put something into it, obviously, but not my all.
As we discussed before, for one of our parole hearings that we recently attended, we had a notification in September or October for the parole hearing to happen, I believe, in December. It got delayed every few months. Eventually, it happened, but it was a year after our first notification, so we had this roller coaster. We would have a date. We wouldn't have actual, set dates, but it should be in December and then, oh, it should be in February, and then, no, it should be in June.
This happened for a year. It was a year of my emotions going up and down. Trying to get yourself mentally prepared for something was very difficult for me, and I can imagine it was very difficult for my brother and my sister-in-law especially.
As I said, my family lives on Vancouver Island. We travelled to the mainland for the hearings. It's the mental preparedness and going over. At our most recent hearing, there were technical difficulties, so we went into the hearing where Kruse Wellwood was—his back was to us—and there were issues with the audio, so they had to take us out of the room and work on the audio, put us back in the room and then take us back out again. At this point, we wondered if this was going to happen. Were we going to have to come back? Was it going to get postponed? Luckily, they got it figured out, so it proceeded.