TROY, N.C. -
Carolyn Ashburn remembers the last time she talked to her dad, more than 30 years ago.
"He called me pumpkin," she said Friday, a day after learning the man who murdered her father would be set free at the end of the month.
"I was down here Saturday in this house. He was out here doing something in the yard," she recalled. "He said, 'What's your hurry, pumpkin?' I said, 'I better go. I'll see you later.' That's the last time I talked to him."
A few days later, James Johnson shot her dad in the pawn shop business he ran out of his home.
Ashburn now lives in the house where he father, John Hall, died.
For the last decade, she's petitioned against Johnson's parole, but Thursday she learned Johnson won't get parole; he'll just go free.
"Disgusted! Disgusted! It's sick," she said. "Just sick to think that the people would do something like this. ... Let the worst of the worst out? They might as well open the door and let them all out."
Twenty North Carolina violent offenders -- Johnson was originally on Death Row -- are scheduled to get out Oct. 29 after state courts sided with one of the inmates, double murderer Bobby Bowden, that a 1970s law defined a life sentence as only 80 years.
The state's Fair Sentencing Act in 1981 included a retroactive provision essentially cutting all those sentences in half, and a variety of good conduct credits, meritorious credits and gain time credits have shortened the sentences to the point that they are now complete.
"It strikes a raw nerve. It just rakes it right down to the core," said Montgomery County Sheriff Jeff Jordan, who explained Johnson's sentence was switched from death to life without parole.
Thirty-one years later, Johnson is set to get out of prison.
"I don't need a lawyer or judge to call me and tell me why they did what they did or how right it is, because I don't want to hear it. I just don't. That's how disgusted I am," said Jordan.
The Associated Press reported that the 20 inmates to be released have racked up a total of 256 infractions in prison for offenses like fighting, weapon possession and theft.
They have repeatedly been denied parole.
"I don't care if it's been a hundred years. He still needs to be there," said Ashburn. "My dad's dead. They've been living."
"He called me pumpkin," she said Friday, a day after learning the man who murdered her father would be set free at the end of the month.
"I was down here Saturday in this house. He was out here doing something in the yard," she recalled. "He said, 'What's your hurry, pumpkin?' I said, 'I better go. I'll see you later.' That's the last time I talked to him."
A few days later, James Johnson shot her dad in the pawn shop business he ran out of his home.
Ashburn now lives in the house where he father, John Hall, died.
For the last decade, she's petitioned against Johnson's parole, but Thursday she learned Johnson won't get parole; he'll just go free.
"Disgusted! Disgusted! It's sick," she said. "Just sick to think that the people would do something like this. ... Let the worst of the worst out? They might as well open the door and let them all out."
Twenty North Carolina violent offenders -- Johnson was originally on Death Row -- are scheduled to get out Oct. 29 after state courts sided with one of the inmates, double murderer Bobby Bowden, that a 1970s law defined a life sentence as only 80 years.
The state's Fair Sentencing Act in 1981 included a retroactive provision essentially cutting all those sentences in half, and a variety of good conduct credits, meritorious credits and gain time credits have shortened the sentences to the point that they are now complete.
"It strikes a raw nerve. It just rakes it right down to the core," said Montgomery County Sheriff Jeff Jordan, who explained Johnson's sentence was switched from death to life without parole.
Thirty-one years later, Johnson is set to get out of prison.
"I don't need a lawyer or judge to call me and tell me why they did what they did or how right it is, because I don't want to hear it. I just don't. That's how disgusted I am," said Jordan.
The Associated Press reported that the 20 inmates to be released have racked up a total of 256 infractions in prison for offenses like fighting, weapon possession and theft.
They have repeatedly been denied parole.
"I don't care if it's been a hundred years. He still needs to be there," said Ashburn. "My dad's dead. They've been living."
