"Murderer Sentenced 6 Months for Escape"

WINNIPEG (CP) - An Indian man who murdered his abusive adoptive father and came to symbolize the sad plight of native adoptees has been sentenced to six months in jail for escaping the Stony Mountain penitentiary.

But the term will be served concurrently with Cameron Kerley's life sentence, provincial court Judge Ian Dubienski ruled.

Dubienski said Kerley is not above the law, despite his tragic background and the fact he turned himself in after escaping.

"In retrospect, we can say mistakes have been made by all parties concerned," the judge said.

"But we have to deal with the situation as it is today."

Kerley turned himself over to police after appearing on a local open-line radio show following his escape May 28.

He had been attending an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting outside the prison, located just north of Winnipeg.

Kerley believes he's redeemed himself with the criminal justice system after serving eight years in prison for the beating death of his white adoptive father, a pre-sentence report prepared for the judge said.

"As a result of all that has happened to this individual, the subject feels that having served eight years makes him 'square' with the system," the report said.

"Consequently, his goal is now to obtain his freedom at any cost."

Kerley was one of thousands of native Manitoban children sent out of province for adoption by the provincial government during the 1960s.

He had witnessed his natural father beaten to death and was rendered an orphan three years later when his alcoholic mother was found frozen to death on a Brandon, Man., street.

He was then adopted by Dick Kerley, a single man from Kansas, who physically and sexually abused him.

Despite Kerley's disclosure of the abuse, he was returned to his father by a Kansas judge. After leaving home briefly, Kerley, in a drunken rage, beat the man to death with a baseball bat.