So we had to read Journey for Justice by Mike McIntyre for our Journalism class this semester. It's about "Project Angel" and how it helped break through the Candace Derksen case. This innocent little girl got snatched up on her way home from school and her investigation went unsolved for over 20 years until the evolution of forensics helped solve her murder.
The book itself was a fairly easy read. It gave all of the detail necessary for anyone who hadn't heard of the Candace Derksen case to understand exactly what was going on. However once the part of the book regarding Mark Grant and the psychological evidence they had in his trial the big words seemed to bog it down a little bit. McIntyre included excerpts of psychiatrist's notes and reports in his book for proof of what types of evidence the crown used to prosecute Grant and these excerpts would have been a little more helpful if they weren't so long. After a while of reading a bunch of doctors diagnosing that this guy had many mental illnesses with all of the medical definitions and what not my brain checked out.
It was nice to see how much he included his relationship and interaction with Wilma Derksen in the book. The fact that Candace's mom was all for it (writing of the book) every step of the way was really shown in Journey for Justice.
What amazed me most about the book was not how the case was cracked 26 years later, but how Wilma's unwavering faith kept her alive the whole time. It still blows my mind that this lady has forgiven the man who murdered her innocent little girl and has stopped asking questions. Flabbergasted. Lost for words. Mind. Literally. Blown.
McIntyre and Wilma Derksen came to speak to us after we had all read Journey for Justice in a seminar at school at the end of March. We didn't get much time to ask questions because Mike gave a thorough description of his background and accomplishments which took up about half of the seminar time. By the time Wilma had given us a little bit of her background there was only enough time for about questions, all of which McIntyre took the liberty of answering. Again, very thoroughly.
The seminar was pretty insightful and I'm glad they took the time out of their day to come and speak with us. The only unfortunate part of the seminar was that time was the enemy and we eventually fell as victims to the restraint of it.
So yeah, read the book. It was actually pretty good and not too long. I read it in just over 2 days (while I was at school so you can do it in a day easily!) There are a few typos but McIntyre I'm sure is well aware of them by now and promises to have them fixed up by the next round of printing.
Journey for Justice by Mike McIntyre, CreComm alumni.
Have You Seen Candace? by Wilma Derksen, also a CreComm alumni.
