HUNTER: Cop killer Rose Cece gets day parole extended

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The club is thankfully small. Calling it elite would be giving its members’ vile deeds some credence.

The Toronto Sun has learned that cop killer Elaine Rose Cece (now Smith) has had her day parole extended for another six months.

Det. Const. Billy Hancox, 32, was working undercover in the city’s east end on Aug. 4, 1998, when he advised his team he had stopped to grab a bite at a Scarborough strip plaza.

Not long after, he radioed his team that he had been stabbed and needed help.

His fellow cops found the young detective mortally wounded beside his vehicle, and he died later in the hospital. Hancox left behind a pregnant wife and a 2-year-old daughter.

Homicide detectives zeroed in on lovers Barbara Taylor and Elaine Cece, now 67. The two crackheads were wasted and had dreams of moving to the country. Those dreams, like Billy Hancox’s, were shattered that night.

On March 4, the Parole Board of Canada extended Cece’s day parole for another six months.

The Parole Board decision obtained by The Toronto Sun has the usual caveats: No drugs, no booze, no contact with a “certain person”, banishment from Ontario, no contact with victims, and report relationships.

Cece’s last institutional offence was in 2004 when she assaulted two corrections officers as they escorted her girlfriend to a different range.

Before murdering Hancox, the Parole Board noted that Cece had a violent history.

“You have offended against a police officer, correctional staff, men, women, a former intimate partner, and another inmate,” the Parole Board wrote, adding that Cece has used knives.

Community release had also been “problematic”. At the time of the shocking Hancox murder, Cece was on parole.

But Cece did have a horrendous upbringing, had experienced bullying and racism (she is Indigenous) and a truckload of other woes. The board also outlined efforts the killer has made to change.

This will be her seventh go-round of day parole.

“It’s outrageous,” one Toronto cop told the Sun. “They murdered a cop, executed him, to be precise. They should never be let out.”

Sadly, that’s just what the system does.

Law enforcement sources said Cece’s one-time paramour and the person identified as the ringleader in the heinous crime, Mary Taylor, has also been on day parole for several years.

“I don’t think any Toronto cop killers are still in prison,” the source said. “They’ve all been released to the public. If you’re willing to kill a cop, what else are you going to be willing to do?”

There’s the man who ran down Sgt. Ryan Russell. He’s out. It was ruled he wasn’t criminally responsible.

Then there’s Toronto’s most notorious cop killer, Craig Munro. He, too, is reportedly on day parole.

Munro and his brother were junkies who decided to rob the George’s Bourbon St. Bistro watering hole on Queen St. W. Munro shot Const. Michael Sweet twice in the chest as he entered the joint on March 14, 1980.

Cops negotiated for 90 crucial minutes as Sweet bled out on the floor, begging the thugs to release him to get medical care. Craig Munro took a different tack.

As the young father of three daughters lay dying, Munro taunted him.

Munro, now 73, went down and ended serving a 44-year stint in prison, always looking for a new angle, including claims of Metis heritage and a slew of other gambits.

He, too, is back on the streets.

Sadly, no big surprise.

bhunter@postmedia.com

@HunterTOSun