Thomas Hutchison, the parole commission's chief of staff, declined comment on Kelly's case, citing federal privacy regulations that protect inmates' records. He said either the parole commission or federal Bureau of Prisons should verify the information in parole requests.
On Dec. 12, 2001, the Parole Commission released Kelly from prison -- nearly five years before his full term would have been up. The commission ordered that Kelly spend time at a halfway house; after that, he was to be freed with a high level of supervision.
"It's a day we will always remember when the rest of the world forgets," Carol Smith wrote on the first anniversary of the slayings of her daughter, Erika, and Erika's father, Greg Russell.
(Sarah L. Voisin -- The Washington Post)
|
|
A Release Based on Deception
Kelly appeared to be a model inmate when he was released from prison to Hope Village, the largest halfway house in the city. The facility, in the 2800 block of Langston Place SE, is overseen by the Bureau of Prisons.
He tested negative for drugs, took required classes in life-skills and told halfway house officers that he had a job hauling trash for a landscaping business at $6.50 an hour, halfway house records show.
In reality, Kelly never had a job; his stepfather was pretending to be his employer. And prosecutors now charge that Kelly was driving a stolen car, a flashy Chrysler Sebring convertible, for three months while living at Hope Village.
"I went up to Hope Village and we pretended he had a job with me hauling trash so they would let him out," William Barker Jr., Kelly's stepfather, testified at a pretrial hearing in Montgomery County this year, saying he did so at Kelly's insistence. "He would get in my truck, and ride around the corner and get out and get in his car."
Parole regulations specify that inmates must be employed before they can be released from halfway houses. An inmate who falsifies employment records would be in violation of his "contract" with the halfway house and would be sent back to prison, said Dan Dunn, spokesman for the Bureau of Prisons. Working for relatives is generally forbidden, Dunn said.
The halfway house staff did not realize that Kelly's purported employer was his stepfather or that the employment records they checked were false, Dunn said, nor did they know he was driving a stolen vehicle.
"Obviously, if the staff had known he was driving a stolen car, that would have resulted not only in a return to prison on parole violations, but also in fresh criminal charges," Dunn said.
Kelly's halfway house supervisors wrote a "final progress report" on March 8, 2002, that said he had been a model inmate and deserved to be released on parole. They noted that he had met all of his obligations and that he followed halfway house rules.
"His prognosis for the future is favorable," summed up his case manager, Darnell Davis, and the facility's assistant director, Robert Emerson.
Halfway house officials released him to the streets.
A Sham Continued
Once Kelly left the halfway house, he moved to the custody of the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency, the federal agency created in 1997 to monitor D.C. inmates on probation and parole.
The agency put Kelly on "maximum supervision" -- its second-toughest standard. It assigned the case to community supervision officer Jeffrey Barlow, who had been on the job for a little more than a year. Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency officials would not describe Barlow's work on Kelly's case in detail or reveal his prior background, and Barlow declined through the agency and a union official to be interviewed.
Under maximum supervision, Kelly was required to meet Barlow once a week for a few minutes, fill out paperwork that attested to his job and living arrangements, and take regular drug tests. Barlow also was required to personally verify Kelly's employment status and his place of residence.
Barlow testified at a pretrial hearing for Kelly this year that he met with him "16 to 17" times during the roughly six months that Kelly was out of the halfway house and free, starting March 8.
Kelly showed up on time for his appointments and tested negative for drugs, Barlow testified. Barlow, who had about 70 other parolees to check on, testified that he thought Kelly "was actually adjusting well." He said that Kelly appeared to be "opening up" in conversations about his family and life after prison. Kelly did not seem "standoffish," Barlow added, and "everything seemed normal."
Like the staff at the halfway house, Barlow did not realize that Kelly's job was a sham or that he was driving a series of stolen cars.
Kelly's family testified that he was bragging behind Barlow's back about being "back in the game," which his sister said she understood to mean the drug trade.
Family members also testified that Kelly secretly was cutting counterfeit checks, filling out fraudulent W-2 forms and filing false loan and mortgage applications.
Less than two weeks after Kelly was released from the halfway house, on March 21, he raped and beat a 60-year-old woman in Silver Spring, according to an indictment filed in Montgomery County. Kelly, who would not be a suspect in the case for months, broke the woman's wrist, separated her shoulder, and pistol-whipped her across the face during the assault, according to police reports. He has pleaded not guilty to charges in the case.
For his part, Barlow testified, he believed Kelly was doing so well that he bumped him into the "medium supervision" category in the spring, cutting back their meetings to every other week.
Kelly also successfully concealed where he was living. He initially resided with his mother and stepfather in the 4300 block of South Capitol Terrace in Southwest Washington. But in the spring, without telling Barlow, he moved in with his girlfriend Tonya Kie in an apartment complex in the 6600 block of Georgia Avenue NW, court records show.
The location would later draw police interest. It was three blocks from where Katie Hill was slain.
An Arrest Missed
Authorities had perhaps their clearest opportunity to return Kelly to custody in June, two months before the killings. On the night of June 10, Kelly was arrested while driving a stolen Toyota after stopping at a liquor store in Prince George's County that is a few hundred feet from the District line.
