- "Mark Edward Grant has pleaded not guilty to one of the city's most notorious cold cases and is now slated to begin his jury trial on Jan. 17, 2011. The first-degree murder case is expected to last six weeks."
- Grant, 44, was ordered to stand trial last fall following a three-week preliminary hearing.
- "Grant was arrested in 2007 after police reopened the investigation into Derksen's unsolved slaying. The 13-year-old girl was grabbed off the street on Nov. 30, 1984, bound with rope and left to freeze to death inside a shed. Her body was found on Jan. 17, 1985 following an exhaustive search that included hundreds of Winnipeg citizens who volunteered their efforts."
- Grant had escaped from prison and was wanted on a Canada-wide warrant at the time of the killing.
- Grant was initially questioned by police but said he had no knowledge of Derksen other than what he had learned from the media.
- Three pubic hairs were found on Candace's body, although police said that she wasn't sexually assaulted. Four scalp hairs that appeared to have been lightly bleached near the roots were found on Derksen's clothing. Police weren't able to test the seven hair strands for DNA until technology improved in July 1993.
- "Unfortunately at that time, police were on a different investigative path and looking at a dangerous sex offender as a potential suspect in what proved to be a false lead."
- Police re-tested the 7 hair samples for DNA testing in 2001 but they received no profiles of any individuals.
- "In 2006, police learned a private Thunder Bay lab had the ability to run more extensive hair-shaft DNA tests than the Mounties offered. The testing involved identifying the "maternal lineage" of the subject donor, which is DNA passed from mother to child."
- A year later, police tracked down Grant and interviewed him about the case. He was just released from prison in 2004 and was still deemed a high risk of sexual re-offending.
- He refused to provide a voluntary DNA sample but police obtained his DNA anyway.
- They compared it to the DNA on the seven hair samples and the samples of hair and rope offered a match to Grant's DNA.
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