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| Photo Credit: Deenle News/AP. |
(AP) - A Kentucky man who killed three fellow students and wounded five others when he was 14 years old will have to spend the rest of his life in prison without another opportunity to seek parole, the Kentucky Parole Board voted Monday.
Michael
Carneal, now 39, told parole board members last week that he would live with
his parents and continue his mental health treatment if they agreed to release
him. He admitted that he still hears voices like the ones that told him to
steal a neighbor’s pistol and fire it into the crowded lobby of Heath High
School in 1997. However, Carneal said that with therapy and medication, he has
learned to control his behavior.
The board,
meeting in Frankfort, voted 7-0 to deny parole, after deliberating in private
for about 30 minutes. Carneal watched the vote over Zoom from the Kentucky
State Reformatory in La Grange. He sat hunched in a small chair as Kentucky
Parole Board Chair Ladeidra Jones asked each member for their vote.
Jones then
told Carneal that “due to the seriousness of your crime” he would serve out his
life sentence in prison.
Carneal said
only, “Yes, ma’am” and quickly left.
Missy
Jenkins Smith, who had considered Carneal a friend before she was paralyzed by
one of his bullets, said she couldn’t sleep Sunday night because she was so
anxious for the decision. She said she was in shock after hearing it.
“It’s so hard to believe I don’t have to worry
about it again,” she said. “I guess I’ll realize it later. It will sink in.”
Jenkins
Smith watched the hearing from her home in Kirksey with another victim, Kelly
Hard Alsip, and their families. Her oldest son, who is 15, had been worried
that if Carneal were released he would come to their house, she said.
Jenkins
Smith, Alsip, others who were wounded in the shooting, and relatives of those
who were killed spoke to the parole board panel last week. Most expressed a
wish for Carneal to spend the rest of his life in prison. Carneal told the panel
there are days that he believes he deserves to die for what he did, but other
days he thinks he could still do some good in the world.
Jones
earlier told Carneal their “number one charge is to maintain public safety.”
She informed him that his inmate file listed his mental health prognosis as
“poor” and says he experiences “paranoid thoughts with violent visual imagery.”
Speaking by
videoconference from the Kentucky State Reformatory last week, Carneal
apologized to his victims, including the entire tightknit community of Heath,
just outside of Paducah. Killed in the Dec. 1, 1997, shooting were 17-year-old
Jessica James, 15-year-old Kayce Steger, and 14-year-old Nicole Hadley, who
Carneal said was a “very good friend” to him.
“I’m sorry
for what I did,” he said. “I know it’s not going to change things or make
anything better, but I am sorry for what I did.”
Carneal was
a freshman when he opened fire on a before-school prayer circle that met in the
lobby each morning. He was given the maximum sentence for someone his age at
the time, life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years.
A two-person
panel of the parole board considered his case last week but could not reach a
unanimous decision, sending the case to the full board meeting on Monday.