Libby child killer drops parole bid during hearing

Child killer Robert Hornback will not be getting his freedom any time soon and he won’t come before the Montana Board of Pardons and Parole for another six years.

Hornback, 58, appeared for his first parole hearing Wednesday from the Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge. He became eligible for parole in August 2022. Hornback was sentenced on March 7, 1988, to 200 years in prison after entering a guilty by Alford plea on March 3, 1988, in the death of 8-year-old Ryan VanLuchene of Libby on Aug. 31, 1987.

Defendants who enter an Alford plea maintain their innocence, but acknowledge the weight of the evidence against them.

“Very amazing day in Deer Lodge,” Jane Weber, Ryan’s mother, said in an email to The Western News Wednesday night. “People were wonderful sending in letters from Libby and the parole board did their homework.”

About halfway through the hearing, which lasted a little more than one hour, Hornback acknowledged that he really didn’t think parole was appropriate for him.

“Until I have more answers I’m withdrawing my request for parole,” Hornback said. “I thought I was ready for this, but I’m not. I apologize for wasting your time and I apologize to my family and Ryan’s family.”

Hornback’s stunning answer was in response to a question from Brad Newman, a member of the parole board and the man who led the hearing.

Newman asked the convicted murderer about his plans for life outside of prison.

Hornback said he believed he needed to transition to life on the outside in a group home or halfway house as well as receiving intensive treatment.

But shortly after he uttered those words, he said he was overcome with emotion and not ready for parole.

After testimony from family members of VanLuchene, three members of the board, Newman, Jimmy Patelis and Darrell Bell, took a few minutes to decide Hornback’s fate and when his next hearing would be held.

Newman returned with the determination that Hornback was denied parole unanimously and that his case wouldn’t be reviewed for six years, the maximum time allowed between parole hearings.

“We denied parole for several reasons,” Newman said. “The nature and severity of the crime, his past criminal behavior and Mr. Hornback’s statements today were just some of the reasons.”

Hornback acknowledged how VanLuchene was killed and the evidence of sexual assault, but he also portrayed himself as a victim. He said after his first offense, a sexual assault of a 13-year-old boy in 1984 in Libby, that he suffered rape and sexual abuse in the Montana State Prison. Hornback received a 5-year sentence to state prison for the crime, but only served three because he received credit for good behavior while locked up.

Hornback had his freedom for about three months before he callously killed VanLuchene while the young boy fished for minnows in Flower Creek near his home.

“It was horrific and I have PTSD because of it,” Hornback claimed about his first stint in prison.

During the hearing and in a 2018 attempt to withdraw from his plea deal, Hornback tried to blame the murder on another person, Cecil Steven Sutherland.

According to various media accounts, Sutherland murdered a 10-year-old girl, Amy Schulz, on July 2, 1987, in Illinois. He was later convicted of her killing and sentenced to death. Sutherland then came to Montana in early October where he was later arrested in Glacier National Park after shooting at passing cars.

Hornback said he was present when Sutherland killed VanLuchene.

“I was in a position to protect Ryan, but I failed to do so,” Hornback said. “It was an act of cowardice on my part.

“I do feel your pain, but I did not murder your son,” he said to VanLuchene’s family members.

After Hornback continued with his claims that he was not the killer, Newman interrupted, telling him that the hearing wasn’t meant to determine his guilt or innocence because that had already been done at trial and in subsequent appeal attempts.

Newman questioned Hornback about what he learned about himself and what would trigger him to reoffend.

“I wouldn’t want to be alone with a child until I get more treatment,” Hornback said.

Hornback said he has received treatment for sex offenders and is waiting to take more.

Members of the parole board also questioned Hornback about his conduct while in custody.

“You were written up for medication abuse this July. Why?” Newman asked.

Hornback blamed another inmate and said he didn’t do what was claimed.

Parole board members also mentioned other incidents, including fighting with another inmate in 2018, and one in 2014 when Hornback made a sexual advance to another inmate while exposing his genitalia.

The board then gave family members an opportunity to speak.

Weber, 75, spoke first.

“It definitely haunts you,” she said. He was a sex offender as a juvenile and my feelings are he is not going to change. He was let out two years early for good behavior, but I saw a document where he said he’d do it again. He will reoffend.

“It’s not fair to me,” Weber said. “I can’t get Ryan out of the grave and he wants out of jail.”

Weber also said she believed Ryan’s dad died of a broken heart due to his son’s murder. Terry VanLuchene died in 2007 at the age of 65.

Derek VanLuchene, Ryan’s brother, also spoke.

“I was 17 when this nightmare started,” Derek said. “Every time one of my three kids turned 8 (years old), I held my breath for that whole year.”

Ryan was 8 when he was killed.

“If you put Hornback back on a street corner in Deer Lodge, you’ll have a missing or dead child in no time,” Derek said.

Paula VanLuchene, Ryan’s older sister, said, “Thirty-five years seems like a long time and it got here quickly for us. I don’t wish on anybody the feelings we had when we knew he (Ryan) was gone. The nightmare continues for us.”

She ended her comments by asking that Hornback spend the rest of his life in prison.

Two of Ryan’s uncles - Greg Weber and Steve Weber - also spoke.

“Ryan was stolen from us,” Greg Weber said as he became emotional.

Steve Weber, who currently lives in Kalispell, said he was in Libby at the time of Ryan’s murder.

“Hornback was very arrogant then and you heard him say he didn’t want to be alone with a child,” Steve Weber said.

In 2019, Hornback tried to get out of the plea deal, filing a motion where he claimed to have agreed to it under duress in 1988. He also cited new evidence and expert analysis that would help his defense.

But Judge John W. Larson, in a Dec. 3, 2019 ruling, resentenced Hornback to 100 years in Montana State Prison, putting aside the persistent felony offender charge. Larson required Hornback to stick to the original terms of his plea agreement, meaning he would not be up for parole until after 35 years behind bars.

In addition to his disciplinary incidents in custody, Hornback was also transferred to state prisons in South Dakota and Kansas.

According to an Associated Press story, he was severely beaten in an infamous riot on Sept. 22, 1991, at the Montana State Prison. Hornback was quoted extensively in the story that detailed how the riot began and the way some of the inmates were killed by fellow inmates.

Weber said she would have been fine with Hornback not surviving his assault in the riot.

“Afterward, he gave state’s evidence about the murders in the riot,” Weber said in a previous interview with The Western News. “He then changed his name and was moved to different prisons.”

An online search of the Montana Department of Corrections Offender Search does not show Hornback, or the name of Sabastian Alsip Canon, a moniker Hornback used in court filings, to be in the Deer Lodge facility.

Weber said Hornback was nearly released from a prison in South Dakota because of some confusion over his name.

Lincoln County court documents indicate Hornback, AKA Sabastian Canon, filed a motion to appeal on Nov. 6, 2001, while residing at the Ed Dorado Correctional Facility in Kansas.

Then, in an order dated Oct. 1, 2010, by then-District Judge Michael Prezeau which denied post conviction relief for Hornback/Canon, the convict’s address was listed as the Lansing Correctional Facility in Kansas.

Also, Hornback wrote in a letter to the Lincoln County Clerk of Court on Nov. 7, 2010, that he had been held in the Dawson County Correctional Facility in Glendive, Montana, before being moved to the South Dakota State Penitentiary.

Officials at the Montana State Prison also refused to provide a current photo of Hornback.