In about four and a half months, the Turnpike Killer will be a free man.
Oklahoma Department of Corrections records indicate Paul Wessley Murray will be released Oct. 21, more than 13 years after causing the death of Sheila Mayfield of Jasper...and still less than a month from his 30th birthday.
Sheila Mayfield's death occurred in January 1994. Mrs. Mayfield, her sister, Shelly Wells, and her grandmother, Velta Ball, were returning from a Miami, Okla., hospital where Sheila and Shelly's mother, Peggy Gordon, was recovering from surgery. They were less than one mile from the Missouri state line when a rock was thrown from the overpass, crashing through the windshield and killing Sheila instantly.
As mentioned in the June 8 2005, Turner Report, two teens were arrested for the murder. One, 15-year-old Benji Trammel, pleaded guilty, was sent to a juvenile correctional facility, was released when he turned 18, and the crime was removed from his record.
More than five years passed before Paul Murray, who was 16 at the time of the murder, finally pleaded guilty to murder in the second degree. He was initially charged with first degree murder after Oklahoma officers found a notebook in his school locker which depicted the same scenario which had claimed Sheila Mayfield's life. Later, the charge was downgraded to second degree murder, to get Murray to enter his plea and to finally bring the case to a close.
Murray entered an Alford plea, meaning he conceded there was enough evidence to convict him, but he was not saying he was actually guilty. As a part of the plea agreement, as The Carthage Press reported in John Hacker's story in the Feb. 2, 1999, issue, Murray's sentence was to be reviewed in 120 days and if he maintained good behavior during that time, his sentence would be reduced from 15 to only five years in prison. He was freed after that four-month period. No five-year sentence, just the four months. Murray was released after four months despite a pre-sentence investigation which said he remained a "danger and a threat to the community and himself."
As of mid-summer 1999, Paul Murray was a free man. His brushes with the law did not end. On March 12, 2002, he pleaded guilty to a public intoxication charge. Four months later, he was stopped and charged with not wearing a seat belt. On March 10, 2003, it was failure to pay child support.Finally, and no information is available from court records as to what ended up sending Murray to prison, it was determined that he had violated the terms of his parole and he was sent to the Oklahoma State Reformatory in Granite on Sept. 11, 2003.
When he is released, he will have served slightly more than four years for a murder that left two small children without a mother.
I'm surprised that the Justice for Juveniles group didn't get involved with this one.
That rocks.
ReplyDeleteWhat a shame that instead of revamping the system to effectively treat and rehabilitate our youth as juveniles. The state is choosing to create monsters raised by hardened criminals in the adult system. I would lock my doors and hope that none of our area youth who went untreated and recieved no rehabiliation for implusive and immature decisions that ended in tragedy, don't move next door to any of us.
ReplyDeleteInstead they are held accountable as adults. The fate of Missouri youth and citizen safety is at stake here. Media hype such as The Turner Report represents Missouri's digression into state-sponsored cruelty and brutality toward young children. It illustrates a mean-streak that has infected our collective consciousness and turned us into a state of child abusers. It is clear that no thought is being given to whether these kids may be amenable to juvenile treatment - instead, this case becomes a political game for over zealous prosecutors that will cost us all.
What on earth do you think the "kid" throwing a rock off a turnpike thought would happen? Do you think he just thought the small boulder he had would just bounce off the car? It was poor judgement, but not impulsive and A PERSON DIED for it. It was NOT an accident, he didn't just drop the boulder, he THREW it at the car. My preference would be that he never got out. He took away a life, and deserves nothing less than to give up his own.
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