Calgary mother relives trauma after Deerfoot park arrest

A Calgary man convicted in the 2009 murder of Laura Furlan served his sentence and was released. Now, Christopher Ward Dunlop is being charged in the death of Judy Maerz, whose body was found last month.

Furlan’s mother says the family is now reliving the horror they experienced years ago.

“To be quite honest with you, when the police called, I thought they were going to call to give me an update that maybe he had died,” Kathryn Furlan told CityNews.

On Thursday, Calgary police charged 48-year-old Dunlop with second-degree murder in connection with Maerz’s case. Her body was found at Deerfoot Athletics Park on Feb. 16.

“This was a very public and extremely disturbing murder,” said Calgary Police S-Sgt. Sean Gregson at a news conference Thursday afternoon.

“We believe that Judy was picked up and transported over to Deerfoot Athletic Park, where she was ultimately killed.”

‘This brings it all back up’

Kathryn says Dunlop’s name wasn’t one she expected to ever hear again. Her daughter’s body was found in Fish Creek Park in 2009.

In this case, Dunlop was arrested and charged in September 2012. While he was accused of first-degree murder, he pleaded guilty to manslaughter in 2015 and sentenced to 13 years in prison. He was given credit for 6.5 years served and was recently released.

“With our justice system, the way that it is … these guys, they go into jail. They’re living the life. They do all of their stuff. They come out as a model prisoner,” Furlan said. “And that’s fine. He did his time, but I thought it was over with, and I didn’t want to think about it anymore. This brings it all back up.”

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Doug King, a professor of justice studies at Mount Royal University, says according to the Correctional Service of Canada, the likelihood of someone who is serving time in jail to finish their sentence and then get out to commit another serious offence is two in 100.

He believes there are challenges in the way these cases are handled.

“You have to worry about what happened in this case, that someone that was clearly as mentally disordered as this individual is and was, how did that individual slip through the cracks in terms of why was a plea deal for a first-degree murder changed to manslaughter. That would have been a Crown decision through the Crown prosecutor. It’s not a judge issue,” King said.

Read More: Calgary police: Man charged in Deerfoot Park death

On Thursday, Calgary police said there were a number of similarities between the two investigations, adding Maerz’s death parallels Laura’s 2009 killing.

“They weren’t known to each other, and I think it was an unfortunate circumstance which they met,” Gregson said.

Meanwhile, Kathryn says seeing Dunlop’s name reappear has made it hard to move forward.

“It’s very hard on my family and it’s very hard on my daughter, son. And we just want it over with, and … his story needs to be over,” she said.

“Enough already with this guy.”

-With files from Lisa Grant