Innocence Project investigates case of Island killer teen

Times Colonist (Victoria)

Mon 10 Apr 2006

Page: B3

Section: Capital Region & Vancouver Island

Byline:

Dateline: VANCOUVER

Source: Canadian Press

VANCOUVER (CP) -- Toronto law-school researchers specializing in helping free Canada's wrongfully convicted are now working on the case of one of B.C.'s most notorious murderers -- a man who as a teen helped to brutally kill the mother and grandmother of a school chum for financial gain.

The Innocence Project at Toronto's Osgoode Law School has agreed to investigate the case of Derik Lord, now 33.

Lord remains in jail for his role in the 1990 grisly double murder of Sharon Huenemann, 47, and Doris Leatherbarrow, 69.

Lord, then 17, along with classmate David Muir, 16, clubbed and slit the throats of the two women as they served the teens a lasagna dinner at Leatherbarrow's Tsawwassen home.

They were promised a fee of $1,000 a month and property in return for the slayings by the women's son and grandson, Darren Huenemann, then 18.

Huenemann was convicted of first-degree murder for masterminding the murders so he could inherit $3 million from his grandmother's estate.

The Innocence Project, founded in 1997 and run by law students for credit toward their degree, accepts only a fraction of the hundreds of applications they receive every year from those claiming to have been railroaded into jail.

Their most famous success was getting Romeo Phillion released in 2003 after he spent 32 years in jail for an Ottawa murder he didn't commit.

The group's website says among the criteria for being accepted is: "A claim of factual innocence is seriously advanced."

Derik Lord's father, David Lord, who lives in Chilliwack and insists his son and the two others were framed, said the Innocence Project took on Derik's case four years ago and travelled to B.C. two years ago to visit him in jail, read files and hire a private detective to chase leads.

But he said the project's funds are limited and the Lords, who David said have spent $550,000 on legal fees and other costs to try to prove Derik's innocence, paid the thousands of dollars for ads running in Vancouver and Victoria papers requesting information about Derik's conviction.

Lord said he hopes the ad will encourage Victoria retail stores to review security video they may still have from 1990 that could prove his son and Muir weren't in Tsawwassen that day, although his son can't provide the names of any stores he might have been in.

Derik Lord's request to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada was turned down in 1995, as was a request to the federal justice minister on grounds of a miscarriage of justice.

Huenemann remains in a Quebec jail, where he won't be eligible for parole until serving 25 years, in 2017.

Lord and Muir were both eligible for parole after 10 years because they were young offenders. Muir, who confessed to the crime, was released in 2002 after serving 10 years.

Lord has been denied parole twice because he's unwilling to confess, his father said, and is eligible to apply again this fall. He is now staying in a minimum security native healing lodge called Kwikwexwelhp, near Harrison Mills.

Illustration:

. Colour Photo: TC file / Derik Lord, with a young relative in 2001, remains in jail for his role in the 1990 double slaying of Sharon Huenemann and Doris Leatherbarrow.

Edition: Final

Story Type: News

Length: 512 words