Robert Kribs, one of the two men convicted in the infamous 1978 murder of 12-year-old Emanuel Jaques, has been denied an escorted day pass after spending nearly half a century behind bars. The parole board ruled that Kribs still poses an 'undue risk' to the public, unlike his co-accused Saul Betesh, who was recently granted a temporary absence.
Background of the Crime
In 1978, Kribs pleaded guilty to the brutal rape and murder of Emanuel Jaques, a shoeshine boy who had recently moved to Toronto from the Azores with his family. Kribs and Betesh lured the boy to a squalid apartment above a body rub parlor on Yonge Street, then Toronto's notorious Sin Strip. There, they subjected Emanuel to hours of sexual torture before drowning him and stuffing his body in a bag, which was hidden on the roof.
Kribs' Current Condition
Now an elderly man, Kribs is 6-foot-5, bent like a willow branch, going deaf, and reliant on a walker after suffering two strokes. He claims to be 86, though government records indicate he is 79. During his parole hearing at Warkworth Penitentiary, Kribs attributed his actions to a traumatic childhood, stating he was forcibly taken from his Indigenous mother by the RCMP and placed in a residential school at age seven, which he likened to a concentration camp.
'It was burned into us, you're a nothing person from a nothing people,' Kribs said, adding that after escaping, he was forced to sell his body to survive. However, board member Ama Beacham countered that many people endure horrific childhoods without committing murder.
Denial of Responsibility
Kribs continues to deny killing the boy, insisting he only held Emanuel's legs while Betesh drowned him. At his own hearing, Betesh claimed Kribs forced the child's head underwater. 'No, I didn't kill the boy,' Kribs asserted. 'I had sex with him but I would not kill.' Despite years of programming, he acknowledged that society does not condone forced sex, but his lack of empathy was evident when asked about the impact on his victims. 'Oh, I couldn't tell you. I really have a hard time feeling or even understanding what other people do,' he said.
Parole Board Decision
After 30 minutes of deliberation, the board denied his request for an escorted day pass, citing undue risk. Kribs shrugged off the decision, stating he didn't expect to be granted parole. 'I deserve everything I got. I deserve to be in prison. I deserve to be dead,' he said, but vowed to reapply in six months.
