Posted by Phil Lee (216.250.238.35) on January 07, 2001 at 15:13:
Maryland Murderer Let Free On Work-Release Takes Hike
A Maryland legislator called for an examination of the state's Patuxent Institution policies after it was revealed that a convicted murderer, Charles Elmer Carpenter, vanished while staying at a halfway house in Baltimore in August.
Not the least of the questions raised will be why Carpenter, who in 1982 shot to death his grandmother and buried her body in Washington County, was allowed to live and work outside the institution that's supposedto psychiatrically rehabilitate inmates entrusted to its care.
Despite his murder conviction and life prison sentence, Carpenter had first been allowed his freedom on work release in 1995. While supposedly serving a prison sentence, Carpenter has held a full-time job, owned a car, been allowed to stay out until midnight, and been given unsupervised weekend leave. Though that leave was to be spent at his half-sister's home,she says he often didn't.
"We are going to be having a careful examination of who is released from jails and prison into work release or home detention," Montgomery County Delegate Dana Dembrow told the Washington Times. Dembrow is a memberof the Maryland House Judiciary Committee.
"That man deliberately killed his grandmother," Anne Faust McCloskey of the Maryland Coalition Against Crime told the newspaper. "He's out driving a car, going to work, living for all intents and purposes a normal life. Is that fair?"
Patuxent supposedly tightened up its operation after the Times reported in 1988 that another convicted murderer was granted unsupervised leaves. A few weeks later an inmate serving time for a rape walked away from the institution and was implicated in a new rape, the Times said last week.
The latest incident - Carpenter has been on the loose for nearly a month - had Patuxent's director calling for a review of the facility's work-release policies.