A woman serving time for instigating a botched home invasion in Blackburn nearly two years ago has been granted day parole.
In a decision issued Tuesday, a Parole Board of Canada panel noted Crystal Dawn Schielke, 23, has been accepted into a residential substance abuse treatment program, to begin in January.
She will likely be denied leave privileges while in the program but should get them once she's completed that segment of her parole and has moved on to a halfway house.
Where the program and the halfway house are located were redacted from the report.
Schielke was sentenced in April to a further two years and seven months in prison for the Feb. 2, 2015 incident. Schielke took credit for coming up with the idea of breaking into the home of a man she knew in search of cash to buy more drugs following a 12-day methamphetamine binge.
She and her three accomplices got more than they bargained for. The victim followed them out armed with a hatchet which he used to break the driver's side window of their getaway car as it spun in the snow. Using the hatchet's butt end, he next broke the arm of a man who was behind the wheel. He then used the butt end to break the jaw of Schielke, who was sitting in the back.
Other than one incident early on, Schielke has been "polite and compliant" since she was sentenced and has shown high potential for reintegration. However, both she and her parole officer have agreed she is not ready for full parole and needs a "gradual and structured release back into the community."
Schielke's sentence ends in November 2018.
