Persistent & predictable problem: High-risk sex offenders walk away from halfway houses, remove ankle monitors
Both child abductor Randall Hopley and Johnny Walkus have violated conditions of parole on previous occasions
On the same day the Vancouver Police Department (VPD) issued a statement they had re-arrested high-risk sex offender Randall Hopley who immediately violated conditions of his statutory release, the VPD said they are looking for another one.
Johnny Walkus, 37, similarly obtained his statutory release, which is automatic after an offender serves two thirds of a sentence, and was ordered to live at a halfway house in Vancouver.
Walkus left the property at 1:30 p.m. yesterday (May 22, 2025) to meet his parole officer but didn't show up. A Canadawide warrant was issued for his arrest and he is on the lam.
Walkus is the bad news. The good news is that in the case Hopley, the VPD was well aware of his proclivity to violate conditions that they were in the area of the Vancouver halfway house he was directed to live at.
"Hopley was released this morning from Mission Institution and was directed to reside at a halfway house in Vancouver," according to a VPD statement from May 22. "He refused direction of his parole officer and left the halfway house."
A Canadawide warrant was issued and he was arrested right away. While the VPD dealt with Hopley as quickly as could have been hoped, Premier David Eby called it "outrageous" that he was released and he was "deeply disappointed" the Correctional Service of Canada did not notify the public of his release.
The Premier was asked about Hopley at an unrelated press conference.
"I can't fathom how he could be released again."
As the Premier is well aware, however, statutory release is mandatory. Unless sentenced to life in prison, after serving two-thirds of any other sentence in an institution, offenders are released into the community to serve the final third of that sentence.
"We need the federal government to step up and ensure that things like this can't happen. It just doesn't make any sense to anybody," Eby said.
The practice of statutory release does have a purpose, although when dealing with human beings, it doesn't always work. If an offender can integrate back into society under strict court-ordered conditions for the final third of a criminal sentence, they are more likely to remain part of society and not re-offend than if they walked out the door of an institution with no guidance or safeguards.
In the cases of both Walkus and Hopley, this isn't the first time they've been wanted on Canadawide warrants.
In February 2024, the VPD issued a news release almost identical to yesterday's stating that Walkus had failed to check in to his halfway house, again on the very day he was out of Matsqui Institution on statutory release.
Walkus is serving a sentence for two counts of sexual assault, and one count each of break and enter with intent and utter threat to cause death/harm.
Hopley's history is much longer. He was convicted of a child abduction in 2007. Then in 2011, he abducted a toddler from his home in Sparwood "out of protest to the RCMP, Judge Webb and my lawyer," he said in court at the time. That boy was not harmed
Hopley took three-year-old Kienan Hebert to an abandoned home across the Alberta border. He hooked up a television, and videos for the boy to watch, and gave him a teddy bear. While a large manhunt was underway, Hopley posted on Facebook that he had not harmed the boy and that he was "sorry, sorry, sorry."
Kienan actually verified that when interviewed by police later, telling investigators that he and Hopley had played games during those four days he was with him. Hopley was sentenced to six years and deemed a long-term offender in 2013.
Hopley's more recent recalcitrance
2018: Police issued a public warning that Hopley was living in Vancouver.
2019: Six months after release he is back in custody, police recommending a new charge.
2022: Pleaded guilty and sentence to 18 months jail for breaching conditions of a long-term supervision order, and then again pleaded guilty to breaching the conditions of the supervision order by being in the presence of children under age 16 in November when he got too close to children while visiting a library.
2023: He cut off his ankle monitor and spent 10 days at large after fleeing his halfway house in the Downtown Eastside.
2024: On May 28, sentenced to 18 months in jail for going on the run.
2025: On May 22, 12 months after the 2024 sentence, he is given statutory release from Mission Institution and immediately refused direction of his parole officer and was arrested again.
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Paul J. Henderson
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