Father of murder victim offers support to Zach Miller

An Alberta man whose two-year-old son was murdered says he wants to help Zach Miller with his petition to get predator inmates offline.

In 2011 this man’s son was killed by T-Jaye Heller in Medicine Hat. Heller had been dating the boy’s mother and the boy was left in Heller’s care.

Neither the father nor the son can be identified because of a publication ban from court.

Heller was originally charged with first degree murder, offering an indignity to a body, and sexual assault, but ended up pleading guilty to second degree murder.

Now, Heller has a profile on the website, Canadian Inmates Connect, a pen pal service for inmates. It’s the same service pedophile Peter Whitmore has a profile.

The boy’s father isn’t happy Heller is on the site, or that there aren’t any details about his crimes. He said people should know what these inmates did before contacting them.

“They obviously should know because being in a relationship with somebody in jail, you should really be very, very careful.”

He said there are lots of vulnerable single mothers out there, and if they don’t know what the inmates have done, and the inmate gets released, what if the inmate does it again.

The father tried to start a petition specifically to get Heller off of the website, he wanted to take it to the Prime Minister. He even got 1,000 signatures. But he said he was told by some lawyers that the idea got stalled.

But when the father saw Zach Miller’s story earlier this week about his petition it brought up a lot of feelings. He said he wants to help Miller with his petition.

“I’m just trying to be my son’s voice and do that best that I can, to advocate for him and, really, all the other children that really can’t do anything,” the father explained, his voice thick with emotion.