Following a decision of not guilty, Cliff and Wilma Derksen emerged from court with smiles.

They had just found out Mark Edward Grant, 54, would be freed.  He's the man who was once convicted of second degree murder in their 13-year-old daughter Candace's death.

"To tell the truth there was a bit of relief," said Wilma outside court following the decision.  "I'm hoping the Crown doesn't appeal.  In any case, were out of here.  It's been 33 years and this just means it's over for us."

Following a six-week retrial earlier this year, Justice Karen Simonsen delivered a summary of her 130-page written decision in court.

"The Crown has not proven Mr. Grant's guilt of second degree murder beyond a reasonable doubt," Simonsen said.  "I, therefore, acquit him of that charge."

Derksen vanished on her way home from school in November of 1984.  

She was found more than a month later in an industrial area, tied up and frozen in a shed.

The case went cold before Grant was arrested and charged with first degree murder in 2007.

A jury found Grant guilty of second degree murder in early 2011, but the decision was appealed and overturned.

The appeal was upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada ultimately leading to this year's retrial.

Grant's lawyer said his client is ready to re-embrace a life out of custody.

"Mr. Grant is crying and grateful that the system has worked," said Grant's lawyer Saul Simmonds.  "That he's been found not guilty, that we've always maintained from the beginning of this matter."

"I think Mr. Grant's just looking forward to being able to look up and see blue sky on a lovely sunny fall day in Winnipeg."

In her decision, Justice Simonsen told court a Crown witness who testified Grant confessed to the crime was unreliable and that DNA evidence which tied Grant to the crime was flawed.

"The DNA testing results and conclusions are fraught with difficulty," she said.

While they accept the decision, with no killer in their daughter's murder behind bars, the Derksens said they're worried about public safety.

"I think that's a concern we have and that makes it uncomfortable for us," said Cliff.  "There's no resolution in a legal sense, that's true, but again we know what we know."

Wilma Derksen said the decision doesn't change anything about Candace.

"It doesn't change at all," she said.  "Candace was murdered and we know she was killed and we know that her legacy now continues to live and that's what's important to us."

"Of course there was a bit of disappointment that it didn't arrive at the conclusion that we have personally arrived at, you know.  That's going to be a little hard to come to grips with."

Simmonds expected Grant would be released from custody in a matter of hours following the verdict.

The Derksens planned to burn 33 candles Wednesday night to symbolize the number of years since Candace's disappearance and death.