INDIANAPOLIS -- William Gholston was found guilty this week of abducting and murdering 15-year-old Dominique Allen. Her family says he never should have been out of prison in the first place.
In the eight months leading up to Allen's brutal murder, Gholston demonstrated a clear pattern of breaking the faith the parole board had shown in him. He was a high-risk offender with a long and violent criminal history who showed a behavior of drug abuse and disdain for the sanctions placed on him.
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Charles Miller was the Indiana Parole Board member who repeatedly gave Gholston second chances.
"This was a horror," Miller said. "Everyone who works in criminal justice, from a prosecutor to a public defender to a parole or probation agent or a parole board member … this is not something you want to see happen. This is the worst thing that can happen."
But the murder did happen, despite the fact that Gholston was given two last chances to succeed or face going back to prison. In fact, Gholston's Indianapolis parole agent urged Miller to send Gholston back to prison to serve out the remainder of his sentence, which would have put him behind bars until 2018.
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Randy Gentry, who served on the Indiana Parole Board, said the decision to give Gholston multiple last chances with Miller's alone.
"How in the world would you give the guy another chance?" Gentry said. "And then, ultimately, the thing that makes your heart sink when you start to dig in, he's accused of murdering a high school freshman girl."
For the Allen family, the jury's verdict was bittersweet, but unnecessary.
"It makes me so mad that they gave him so many chances," said Allen's sister Shenika Poindexter. "If they had done what they were supposed to do, we wouldn't be in this situation. She would still be here."
Miller said in hindsight he would "certainly make a different decision."
"However, I'm not gifted with that power," he said.
Gentry was appointed three times to the Indiana Parole Board by former Gov. Mitch Daniels. Shortly after he raised questions about the handling of the Gholston case, he says he was asked to resign from the board, before he was ultimately fired by the state.
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