Court sketch of Douglas Garland, the man questioned in connection with the missing family of grandparents Alvin Liknes, Kathryn Liknes and grandson Nathan O'Brien. Photo: Courtesy CBC Calgary/Postmedia News The man deemed a “person of interest” in the weeklong disappearance of a little Calgary boy and his grandparents has had sporadic but persistent trouble with authority for much of his life.
Documents from June of 2000 were released Tuesday by the Parole Board of Canada (formerly the National Parole Board) about Douglas Robert Garland, who was then serving time for narcotics offences stemming from a drug lab bust on his parents’ acreage in rural Airdrie, near Calgary, eight years earlier.
Under an “accelerated parole review” program, which no longer exists, Garland was eligible for parole after serving just a sixth of his 39-month sentence.
It appears he was released some time after the June 19, 2000 decision and a follow-up one in October that year.
But the documents also refer to several criminal charges for violence Garland once faced, a two-decades long record for property offences and ongoing “mental health concerns.”
Douglas Garland, the man questioned in connection with the missing family of grandparents Alvin Liknes, Kathryn Liknes and grandson Nathan O’Brien. The photo is from when Garland was wanted by the RCMP as a suspected chemical mixer from a drug raid in 1992. (Calgary Herald Files)
The decisions note that one charge for possession of a prohibited weapon was dismissed in 1988, another withdrawn in 1999, while an assault charge was stayed in 1989.
Now 54, Garland was taken in for questioning Saturday after Calgary police received information that there was a green truck — similar to one seen driving near the residence where five-year-old Nathan O’Brien was staying with grandparents Alvin and Kathryn Liknes when they all vanished — spotted on the Airdrie acreage about an hour north of Calgary.
Garland remains in custody on charges unrelated to the disappearance of the trio — allegedly possessing identification in the name of 14-year-old Matthew Kemper Hartley. He is due back in court Wednesday.
It’s the same name of the real but tragically long-dead teenager whose identity Garland had assumed while he was on the lam on the drug charges.
The teen, and his 12-year-old sister Jill Lorene Hartley, were killed in a car crash in 1980 outside Cardston, Alta.
Garland had been using and working under the name during his almost seven years on the run from police.
Police make their way around the search area near the Airdrie acreage in connection with the disappearance of Nathan O’Brien, 5, and his grandparents, Alvin and Kathryn Liknes, on July 7, 2014. COLLEEN DE NEVE/POSTMEDIA NEWS
Busted on Oct. 23, 1992 on his parents’ acreage, where police found a sophisticated drug lab with a vast supply of chemicals used in the manufacture of methamphetamines — albeit no actual finished drugs — Garland made one court appearance on drug-trafficking charges, then vanished.
He was belatedly tracked down — in Richmond, B.C., where he had also been arrested in connection with a stolen tractor-trailer — in 1999 only after Calgary RCMP put him on its most wanted list on the web.
He pleaded guilty to two drug-trafficking charges in January of 2000 and was sentenced to 39 months in jail, though in fact, because of the accelerated release program, he appears to have served only between six and 10 months.
Despite what the board described as “weapons and assault charges” that might indicate Garland, then 40, could commit a violent offence, it concluded his age, the fact he’d never been convicted for violence and a psychological assessment that found he had little potential for violence offset that.
Board members were concerned by his “20-plus years” of property offences and contributing “mental issues,” but concluded, “Your mental health is assessed as having stabilized and with close monitoring” by a psychiatrist and psychologist until what’s called his “warrant expiry date” in October of 2003, he was deemed a manageable risk.
A Postmedia News story from the drugs trial noted that the meth cook, as drug makers are called, had studied science at the University of Alberta but was expelled after being caught cheating.
A university spokesman Tuesday said she couldn’t confirm that sort of detail because of confidentiality concerns.
In the only other public decision readily available about Garland — a 2005 Tax Court of Canada decision that saw him win the right to unemployment benefits despite having worked under the dead teen’s name — he is also described as troubled.
The judge in that case, which saw the government try to deny him benefits because he used a false identity and social insurance number, described him as intelligent but suffering from attention-deficit disorder and prone to breakdowns.
Rod and Jennifer O’Brien speak to the media about their missing son Nathan O’Brien and his grandparents Alvin and Kathryn Liknes during a press conference in Calgary on July 2, 2014. JEFF McINTOSH/THE CANADIAN PRESS
According to what Judge Campbell Miller heard, Garland suffered a breakdown while at the University of Alberta, and “also seems to have been traumatized by causing what he described as a horrific accident due to falling asleep at the wheel.”
Yet some who knew Garland in those days say they never heard of him being involved in such an accident.
While on the run in British Columbia, the judge wrote, Garland applied and got a job at a company called Can Test, where he supervised 30 other employees.
But, Judge Miller wrote in his March 3, 2005 decision, Garland found “he was unable to cope, and he suffered another breakdown in late 1997.”
He was dismissed in October that year, “considered a wrongful dismissal suit,” but found part-time work with the B.C. Institute of Technology.
Judge Miller was aware of his trafficking convictions and his time in jail.
“I am mindful of Mr. Garland’s state of health,” he wrote. “His attention deficit disorder contributed to some muddled thinking. His reliance on the false SIN was to escape the reach of the RCMP. As he acknowledged, it was not a bright idea.”
In ruling in Garland’s favour, Judge Miller said, “This troubled man should not be precluded from receiving benefits from a program into which he and his employers paid…”
Still, it’s an interesting mix of personality characteristics. Garland appears to have a well-honed sense of entitlement: He’s a man, after all, who used a dead teen’s identity to get a job but nonetheless considered filing a wrongful dismissal suit when he was fired, and who, having served time, still had the chutzpah to fight for EI benefits and successfully represented himself in court.
cblatchford@postmedia.com
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