Killers’ freedom angers victims’ kin
By Michele McPhee
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Some 171 “lifers” convicted of murder have been sprung on parole from Bay State prisons in the past three years, including a sex offender who killed his teen girlfriend’s mother and then went Hollywood.
State officials say the cons were “rehabilitated” and that their sentences allowed parole after 15 years. But that doesn’t wash with families of murder victims.
“It’s an absolute outrage that anyone that commits murder is allowed to return home back to their families. When we can have our loved ones back, maybe then they could get out,” said Terry Titcomb, whose son Albert was murdered in 1994.
Of the lifers paroled since 2002, 26 landed back behind bars after violating their paroles, said Donald Giancioppo, executive director of the Massachusetts Parole Board.
Perhaps the most bizarre case involves Arthur Bembury of Dorchester, convicted of pumping a single bullet into Louise Simmons in 1971 after the victim told him she did not want him dating her 14-year-old daughter.
Bembury was 20 at the time of the slaying. Three years after he was sentenced to life behind bars, he escaped from prison during a furlough from MCI-Norfolk and spent more than a decade on the lam in Los Angeles, where he landed bit parts as an actor on the TV show “Hill Street Blues” and in the movie “Colors.”
He was recaptured in 1988, but became one of 33 “lifers” approved for parole last year, according to Massachusetts Parole Board documents reviewed by the Herald.
“It’s easy to say ‘Lock them up and throw away the key,’ but that system just does not work,” said Maureen Walsh, chairwoman of the seven-member Massachusetts Parole Board.
“It’s incumbent upon us to make a decision on whether a person has been rehabilitated. There is not one simple solution.
“It’s not about being tough on crime or soft on crime. It’s about being rational,” Walsh added. “It’s an awesome responsibility. You are always going to be making a decision that disappoints.”
Once they’re released, most convicted killers stay on parole and at least one of them thinks that’s just too harsh.
Donald Look, who killed his first wife and threatened to kill his second, told the Herald from his Rochester home, “The system stinks. I am crippled with old age. I’m fat. My knees are gone. I’m not a threat to anyone. Where the hell am I going to go? I don’t need no parole officer.”
Look served two decades in prison for shooting his first wife, former Rochester town Treasurer Suzanne Look, in the stomach with a 12-gauge shotgun.
Months after he was released on parole, he wound up back in the can for threatening to kill his second wife, Janice Look.
After just six more months in prison, he was released again last year.
While Sean Fritz, the man convicted of killing Titcomb’s son, was sentenced to life without parole and remains behind bars, Titcomb believes those who commit murder should be incarcerated, period.
“I don’t believe in this plea-bargain stuff. What kind of justice is that, letting murderers cop a deal?” she said. “A killer is a killer. Once a killer, always a killer.”
Many killers plead guilty to second-degree murder to avoid a trial, making them eligible for parole after just 15 years under Massachusetts law.
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