District Attorney Candice Hooper at Tuesday’s board meeting broached the upcoming parole hearing of local murderer Gustavo Marlow and vowed she will push to “keep him in state prison where he belongs.”
Hooper will head efforts to fight against the possible release of Marlow, who killed two young Hollister females in the late 1980s and went on a violent rampage with those and other crimes targeted toward women. Former D.A. Harry Damkar, who won the original murder convictions, will assist in the case.
Because of a recent law change, Marlow will be up for parole at an April 7 hearing. Initially, in 1991, he received a sentence of 66 years to life in prison, with two convictions for murder and another for rape. The law change, though, takes crimes committed in youth out of the equation in relation to parole eligibility. Since the only conviction in adulthood was rape, and the two murders were while Marlow was a juvenile, the killer could get out of prison this spring.
Hooper said her office had received many questions on how to contact the parole board and fight against his release.
“The San Benito County District Attorney’s Office is going to do everything it can to keep this serial killer, murderer, what title you want to give this individual, to keep him in state prison where he belongs,” Hooper told supervisors.
To read a special Free Lance report on the case, see the story link at left.
