Delon Shurtz
lethbridge herald
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A Lethbridge man who killed his wife and her boyfriend more than 20 years ago and was sentenced to life in prison, is hoping to get out early.
Fred Oczko, who is currently serving his sentence at the Bowden Institution in central Alberta, has applied for a reduction in the number of years of imprisonment he must serve before he's eligible for parole.
Oczko, 70, was sentenced to life imprisonment with eligibility for parole after 25 years. He's served 21 of those years.
His fate, however, is in the hands of Chief Justice N. C. Whittmann, who heard Oczko's application during a hearing last week in Lethbridge Court of Queen's Bench. Whittmann will consider, on a balance of probabilities, whether he believes there is a substantial likelihood the application would succeed in front of a jury. If he finds it could, the application will go before a jury which will decide what, if any, consideration to give Oczko.
"Whatever privileges they are prepared to grant him," explains Bob Coleman, Lethbridge's chief Crown prosecutor.
Whittmann has reserved his decision, however, and only promised to deliver a written decision in the near future.
Oczko was convicted by a jury on two counts of first-degree murder in March of 1993, stemming from the shooting of Mavis Oczko and Kenneth Cherniawsky Jan. 24, 1991 at a farmhouse near New Dayton southeast of Lethbridge. Cherniawsky's mother found the bodies early that day.
During trial Oczko testified he had been drinking heavily the night of the shootings and didn't find out about them until he woke up in the morning in his Lethbridge home and a friend accused him of the crime. Oczko's lawyers, on the other hand, accused his friend, Robert Vernon Manzke, of committing the murders.
Oczko's estranged wife was shot four times. Cherniawsky, 46, was shot twice.
Two witnesses testified at the trial Oczko told them he had committed the double murder at Cherniawsky's farm. RCMP matched spent rifle cartridges found in the home with cartridges found in Oczko's home. Manzke and Oczko's two sons testified a Winchester rifle was missing from a living room rack in Oczko's home the morning after the murders.
Oczko appealed his conviction in Alberta's Court of Appeal in 1995, but it was dismissed, as was an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada the following year.