Saturday, Jan 24, 2015 06:00 am

By: Viola Pruss

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For four years, the life of Bret McCann and his family stood still as he waited to find out what happened to his parents.

On Friday, a trial date was set for Travis Vader in the deaths of St. Albert seniors Lyle and Marie McCann. Vader will be tried by judge and jury.

The trial is set to run for a month, from March 7 to April 8, 2016. A jury selection is expected for March 3 of that year. Bret McCann said the family is relieved that a date has been set and they can now "plan our lives."

"This is taking a long time but I understand the background to it," he said. "We are relieved that this is finally going ahead and 2016 seems a long ways away but it will come."

Vader was rearrested on the double first-degree murder charges on Dec. 19. He is currently under house arrest and did not appear at the Edmonton courtroom hearing Friday.

Crown prosecutors stayed the charges against the 42-year-old in March 2014, one month before his original trial date, stating "the Crown cannot continue prosecution unless there is opportunity to review all the evidence, especially if there is new evidence from investigators."

At the time the charges were stayed Vader's lawyer Brian Beresh said RCMP "unfairly vilified" Vader by indicting him in the public eye. He said the length of time the proceedings had stretched out for, nearly four years, spoke to the holes in the prosecution's case.

On Friday, Beresh said he did not receive any new evidence.

He is concerned that prosecution will gain an advantage by delaying the trial. One of the defence applications will be that the prosecution cannot use any evidence found in the interim, he said.

"Despite the public belief that people don’t want their day of justice Mr. Vader does," he said. "If this delay infringes on his right to a fair trial, that will certainly be an issue we're going to raise and ask for the appropriate remedy."

This remedy could be a judicial stay of proceedings, he said – an order preventing, either temporarily or permanently, any further action on a prosecution.

Murder charges

Vader is charged in the deaths of Lyle, 78, and Marie McCann, 77. The couple went missing in July 2010 on a trip to British Columbia to visit family. The burned-out shell of their motorhome was discovered at a campground near Edson a few days later.

The McCanns were legally declared dead in July 2011, and their bodies have never been found.

Vader was formally charged in the disappearance of the St. Albert couple nearly two years after he was named a suspect. In April 2014, Vader launched a $1 million lawsuit against 60 people including Crown prosecutors, RCMP and the attorney general of Canada.

The statement of claim stated RCMP and the Crown deliberately prolonged the prosecution of the homicide charges despite there being "no reasonable prospect of conviction."

The statement also includes allegations made in an earlier statement of claim filed in February for $150,000. That claim stated that RCMP held Vader in custody under fraudulent charges to buy them more time to gather evidence for another investigation.

In October, Vader was acquitted on unrelated charges, including theft, drug trafficking and careless storage of a firearm and was released after serving more than four years in custody. He remains under house arrest.

McCann said the family still has a $60,000 reward available for anyone with information that can help find his parents. Anyone with information on the location of Lyle and Marie McCann should call the RCMP or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS).