-
May 15, 2008 11:16 pm US/Eastern
-
Digg |
Facebook |
E-mail
|
Print
Man Convicted In Classroom Stabbing Granted Parole
BOSTON (WBZ) ―
A man who was convicted in 1995 of stabbing a teen in a Dartmouth High School classroom in front of students and a teacher is being released on parole.
The State Parole Board approved the release of 31-year-old Karter K. Reed, who was convicted of the April 12, 1993 fatal stabbing of 16-year-old Jason Robinson.
"I'm in prison because I took someone's life," Reed told WBZ in an interview two years ago. "I can't give that back."
Reed, who was 16 at the time, stabbed Robinson to death in a social studies class while two of his friends, Nigel Thomas and Gator Collet, held the boy down. The three boys entered the classroom with knives, bats and billy clubs. Robinson was not the target of the attack. The teens went into the school looking for a different Dartmouth student.
All three teens were charged in the stabbing death, and Collet and Reed were tried as adults. Collet pleaded guilty to manslaughter and served 10 years of a 17-to 20-year prison sentence. Thomas was tried as a juvenile and given a one-year suspended sentence.
Reed, who was a student at Greater New Bedford Regional Vocational-Technical High School, was convicted of second-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison with eligibility for parole after 15 years. He was arrested in 1993 and convicted in 1995.
The parole board voted on April 18 to grant him parole 4-3. The decision was finalized Thursday.
The news stunned Robinson's sister, Shauna Robinson.
"You can't begin to describe how upsetting it is," she said. "It makes you sick. I thought in 25 years maybe he would get out, maybe. I never thought (he would get out) at his first parole hearing after 15 years."
While the parole board believes the young offender deserves a second chance, the Robinson family doesn't agree with their decision and said they don't think Reed is rehabilitated.
"They should talk to the victims like my daughter and me and his mother," said Robinson's father, Burt Robinson.
"I think if a person has the ability to kill in them it's always with them," Shauna Robinson said. "It's an essence of a person's being."
Reed will be on supervised parole for the rest of his life and he must have no contact with the Robinson family and must undergo drug and alcohol testing.
Reed will be free after he serves six months in a prison pre-release program.
(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)