MANDEL: Shoeshine boy killer Robert Kribs still too dangerous for escorted day pass

While his co-accused Saul Betesh was recently granted an escorted temporary absence, the parole board found Kribs poses an 'undue risk'

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Published Apr 30, 2026  •  Last updated 16 minutes ago  •  3 minute read

Emanuel Jaques

Unlike his co-accused, shoeshine boy killer Robert “Stretcher” Kribs has been denied an escorted day pass because he still poses too great a risk after spending almost half a century behind bars, the Toronto Sun has learned.

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Life in prison has aged the sadistic rapist and murderer of 12-year-old Emanuel Jaques.

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It was back in 1978 that Kribs pleaded guilty at the start of his trial, admitting he had his pal Saul Betesh– who also had an appetite for underage boys – lure the boy to his grimy squat above a body rub parlour on the seedy Sin Strip that was Yonge St. at the time.

It was there that Emanuel – recently arrived to Toronto with his family from the Azores – underwent hours of sexual torture by the two men before he was drowned and his body stuffed in a bag and hidden on the roof.

The child killer is an old man now – his stringy 6-foot-5 frame is bent like a willow branch, he’s going deaf, needs a walker and has had two strokes.

Still wearing a moustache and his hair long, he claims he’s 86 – though government records say he’s 79 – and he was “damaged” after being forcibly taken by the RCMP from his Indigenous mother and forced into a residential school when he was just seven.

Robert Kribs is led into Toronto police station in August 1977 afer shoeshine boy Emanuel Jaques was slain. He’s now seeking full parole. Photo by Sun files

Killer wasn’t expecting full parole

In a parole hearing conducted Thursday at Warkworth Penitentiary with The Sun as the only observer, Kribs said he wasn’t expecting full parole at this stage – he was hoping to be let out on a one-day pass to visit Joyceville Pen to look into their programming if he’s eventually allowed to cascade down to minimum from his current medium security digs.

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His thoughts wandered and meandered as he and the board sat in a circle around a table adorned with an eagle feather and he made a “little presentation” on his past: Kribs recalled being beaten at a Manitoba residential school he likened to a concentration camp – “it was burned into us ‘you’re a nothing person from a nothing people'” – before he finally escaped and was forced to “sell his bum to men” on the street to survive.

If he didn’t, Kribs explained, he wouldn’t be able to eat.

Yes, interrupted board member Ama Beacham, but many people have horrific childhoods and don’t go on to rape and murder a young boy.

His relaxed stance suddenly stiffened. Kribs has always insisted he just held Emanuel’s legs while Betesh drowned him in his sink.

Shoeshine boy killer Saul Betesh is shown here in his profile photo from a matchmaking website. (canadianinmatesconnect.com)

Still denies killing 12-year-old shoeshine boy

At his own parole hearing last week, Betesh – who was granted an escorted temporary absence– told the board it was Kribs who forced the child’s head under water until he was dead.

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“You killed the boy,” Beacham said.

“No, I didn’t kill the boy,” Kribs disagreed, his voice rising. “I denied ever since I came to jail, I denied it in court. I had sex with him but I would not kill.”

After years of programming, he’s come to accept that the norms of society don’t allow forced sex.

“I’ve tried to learn that,” Kribs said.

That was hardly reassuring.

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As for him being caught with photos of young males in 2018, he said he can now control his urges despite stopping medication a few years ago.

“I just don’t think about it,” Kribs told the board.

Asked about the impact of his crimes on his victims, he congratulated himself for it leading to the clean up of Yonge St.

No, interjected board member Arun Kundu-Thomsen, what did he think was the impact on his victims?

“Oh, I couldn’t tell you,” Kribs struggled. “I really have a hard time feeling or even understanding what other people do.”

Emanuel Jaques, deep in thought on a Yonge St. doorstep summer of 1977, in the weeks before his death.

Killer offers some startling honesty

He may not have empathy but the killer did offer some startling honesty.

“If I was one of you, I wouldn’t trust me at all,” Kribs said. “I deserve everything I got. I deserve to be in prison. I deserve to be dead.”

After 30 minutes of deliberation, the board told him the “risk would be undue” if he was to be released on an escorted day pass.

Kribs just shrugged.

“I personally didn’t think I was going to get it. I don’t care really. I’m not going to give up,” he vowed. “I’m going to apply again in six months.”

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