A grizzled Robert King, 72, told a camera in a cell at the Oregon State Department Of Corrections in August that he had recently changed.
He was no longer the very same King who had been handed down a life sentence for the political assassination of a Lake Oswego lady in 1984, leaving her little daughter without a mother.
King, a 6-foot-1, 220-pound native of Alabama who peddled cocaine, gave investment assistance to the one of Northwest’s great families, and dabbled in the demimonde, was at the time hustler with a knack for gab.
King choked up and stated, “I strive to make amends for everything regularly, the wrongdoings I did that the little girl and the mother. I will never be able to invent it.”
In a decade of conflict, King’s three hours being questioned by the Boards of Parole constituted the most recent encounter.
He has battled prostate cancer. He has opposed vaccination laws. He has taken the Oregon Appeals Court twice in his battle against the parole board.
This time, though, he felt more within reach of liberation.
Two seasoned prison officers spoke in favor of King’s parole, among other things, saying that he has been a model prisoner and has often helped save the lives of his colleagues.
What King’s Attorney, Venetia Mayhew, Stated?
King’s attorney, Venetia Mayhew, stated that “his current record and conduct while his sentence more than establishes that King has been healed for so many years.” Mr. King desires to return home.
The parole board approved for the first time in King’s 40 years in prison. He will be released in May.
Not everybody concurs. Authorities in Clackamas County, an hour away north of the Oregon State Department Of Corrections, are concerned about the possibility of King’s parole.
Dave Paul, senior deputy state’s attorney for Clackamas County, claims that his close supervision in the Division of Corrections is the sole thing keeping Mr. King from committing further offenses.
According to Jay Keating, a former business partner of King, “I think he views killing a human person like he views killing a single boar inside the outback of Alabama. If King continues to pose a risk to the well-being and welfare of the public,” the board may choose to delay his release.
At a meeting, it will go over King’s mental health assessment.
In the interim, Dorothy Bullitt, a 67-year-old Seattle retiree, is assembling evidence to dissuade King from being released. She feels that he still belongs in jail.
Not so much because she believes he should remain behind bars for the killing of Julie Salter at Lake Oswego or the botched plot to kill a jeweler in Seattle.
But Bullitt is certain that King murdered her brother in 1981 and that he also wants to murder her.
