VANCOUVER — Wilma Derksen, whose 13-year-old daughter Candace was killed in Winnipeg in 1984, still has questions about what happened to her “exquisite” child after the man accused of murdering her was acquitted in 2017.
She now wonders what may come to light after the same man, Mark Edward Grant, was arrested in Vancouver this month and charged with sexual assault, unlawful confinement, assault with a weapon and uttering threats.
Derksen said in an email that her family was “shocked” to hear of Grant’s arrest.
“Our reactions were mixed — horrified at the act of assault that sounded so similar to Candace’s assault that led to her death. Curious if this incident would bring more answers — we still have questions — and ache for the victim and her family,” Derksen wrote.
She lamented the “grief, horror and more grief and then more horror.”
Vancouver police said in a statement Wednesday that the charges against Grant are connected with an alleged incident in the city’s Downtown Eastside on Jan. 8.
It said officers responded to an early morning call that “a woman in her sixties had been sexually assaulted by a man inside a residential building close to East Hastings Street and Columbia Street.”
Grant, now 62, is in custody awaiting a bail hearing, police said.
Grant was found not guilty of second-degree murder in the death of Candace Derksen who was last seen walking home from school in November 1984.
Her frozen body was found six weeks later, with her hands and feet bound, in an industrial shed.
Grant was originally arrested for the killing in 2007 and found guilty in 2011 based on DNA evidence from the twine used to bind Derksen.
But the Supreme Court of Canada overturned the conviction two years later, leading to a new trial in 2017 where the DNA evidence was ruled to be flawed.
The 2017 trial heard that the DNA evidence had deteriorated between Derksen’s death in 1984 and the first trial.
Grant was unknown to the Derksen family at the time of the teen’s death, and he had a long criminal record including sexual assaults and other crimes.
He filed a lawsuit in 2019 against the Manitoba government and others for wrongful conviction, and court records indicate that judgment in that case was reserved in November 2025.
Grant’s Winnipeg-based defence lawyer in the murder case, Saul Simmonds, did not respond to a request for comment.
Lawyer Tina Hull, who along with Ottawa-based lawyer Lawrence Greenspon, is representing Grant in the pending civil lawsuit did not respond to a request for comment.
Wilma Dirksen said the family had “carried on” in the years since Candace’s murder.
“We had chosen the word ‘forgiveness’ from the beginning and have been determined that the trauma of murder would not rob us of our lives,” she said.
Derksen shared an incomplete biography she’s writing about Candace, describing the 13-year-old as “exquisite — a crown of soft black hair and eyes wide open. So alive, yet impossibly tiny. She was pure grace — fragile, radiant, angelic.”
The B.C. Prosecution Service said Grant has a court appearance set for Jan. 28.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 21, 2026.
Darryl Greer, The Canadian Press
