It took detectives more than a decade to locate the man who killed a Prince George’s County high school pupil. But after less than 9 years in jail, he’s a loose guy. Nia Owens was left useless in a wooded location in Hyattsville, Maryland, more than twenty years in the past. Police stated she was sexually assaulted and strangled near Northwestern High School in 1996. Years later, Matthew Bethea was convicted and sentenced to serve 15 years in prison after DNA linked him to the crime. Recently, Bethea changed to reducing his sentence via diminution credits, which allow inmates to reduce their sentences for showing good conduct in prison. He was released from prison on March 5.
“To recognize that he is out and he is around this metropolitan vicinity, handiest makes me want to move to some other place,” Owens’ mother, Angela Wood, stated Tuesday. Wood joined other ladies in Annapolis to push for a regulation to have the diminution credit removed for convicted murderers. “If there’s any desirable time credit score, then it wishes to be something that they earn inside the jail to affect them in prison, now not coming domestic to society,” Wood stated.
The credit device was set up as an incentive to prisoners. If they work, take classes, and exhibit excellent conduct, they can get an early launch. For example, Gale Seaton’s teenage daughter Stacy was killed in Bowie. She stated the man convicted of hiring someone to kill her is about to get out in 12 months. “Somebody who is a chilly-blooded killer, you’re now not going to rehabilitate them,” Seaton said.
“We are so busy trying to busy looking to paintings on justice reinvestment and cutting all people breaks; we’ve were given to realize that when they are serious crimes, and we don’t have the death penalty anymore, that we need to make sure that justice is finished,” Maryland Del. Susan McComas stated. Another person’s DNA was observed on Owens at the time of her death. That DNA becomes located in a country-wide database. However, it has not been identified.