Posted on 05/23/2005 6:06:18 AM PDT by Fido969
Monday, May 23, 2005
Minister had hope for ex-con in Maine
Associated Press
©Copyright 2004 Associated Press. E-mail this story to a friend
MONTPELIER, Vt. — The pastor who drove Kent Hanson to Maine after he was released from prison had high hopes for the ex-convict. The Rev. Pete Fiske of The Church at Prison holds services at the St. Albans prison and helps offenders after they leave prison.
On the morning of May 12, the 63-year-old Hanson had just served the last minutes of a 20-year sentence for the 1985 murder of Helena Warner. Fiske was taking the man to a transitional home in north central Maine because Hanson had few options for living in Vermont.
Instead, Maine police say Hanson stole a pickup truck from the home last week and they are investigating whether he assaulted a woman.
Fiske knew about Hanson's violent nature - Warner's murder and the plea of innocent by reason of insanity to the 1964 killing of his wife, Joan Hanson - but Fiske didn't see that side of Hanson as they made the trip to Maine. Hanson talked enthusiastically about a new life.
The trip ended on an optimistic note when Fiske and Hanson arrived at 2nd Chance Ranch, run by Fred and Christine Maddocks in Charleston, Maine.
"In my mind it was like a Walt Disney ending to a movie," Fiske recalled.
But circumstances changed quickly.
"I'm sorry that he made those decisions. It's basically throwing the rest of his life away," Fiske said.
Police found Hanson Friday in Detroit, Maine, at the home of a woman he had met the night before in a bar.
"We all knew that the worst thing that could happen is for him to start drinking," Fiske said.
Fiske wonders whether Hanson should have left jail at all.
"Given the way that it turned out," Fiske said, "it may have been better to have kept him in."
Another mush-brained clueless liberal "minister". I have noticed a lot of these lately. While I have the highest degree of respect for many ministers that I know, I also think our divinity schools have been taken over by leftist losers.
There were reports that the woman he picked up at the bar showed signs of being beat up. She could have been victem #3!
How many people do you have to kill before you are just locked up forever?
What a ridiculous story.
The liberals tells us the cons need help. Maybe it's the liberals who need help more, though.
What liberalism has wrought.
Yep. Another one of the temporary insanity cases that
can turn it on and off at the drop of a hat. And just
what do they think is different about all these child
abuse perverts that they let loose? IMO, accidental
homicide is the ONLY type of murder that has any
valid excuse for leniency. And I don't mean "Ooops!
I accidentally strangled the kid while I was holding
her down."
If he had such "high hopes" how come the pastor didn't drive him to his own town. Thank. I really appreciate Maine becoming the dumping ground of more thugs, rapist, murders, drug addicts, and liberals. We have enough from Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island, we don't need the ilk of Vermont either. Keep them in your own backyard!
No SH** Sherlock!
Hey, us conservatives are involved in this too. If you don't give them a chance they definately will go back to old ways. YOU KNOW NOTHING ABUT THE PASTOR INVOLVED IN THIS!
I have worked with 8 guys. None have gone back to prion yet although I think one will eventually because he has link up with a women doing drugs. One has stayed strong in his faith and is definately going to make it. They rest have stayed out of prison although they have stumbled a couple of times.
I work with a guy who has 6 houses full of exoffenders and it is his goal the save the state a million dollars by keeping guys out of prison. I think he will be good on his word.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO HELP THE SITUATION!
Did it ever occur to the dumbass that "he didn't see that side of Hanson" because he's not a woman? Sheesh.
There is no reason to believe this minister was a "liberal" just because he hasn't much sense. This PoS killed TWO women and should have been worm food decades ago.
We live about 10 minutes from the place where this nut case was arrested. Thanks to Minister Mush For Brains my neighborhood was less safe for a few days, maybe he should have had the con staying at home with HIS family.
It's possible her bruises weren't from him; I live in the area and the bar looks like a dive from the outside and makes the papers frequently. Beaten-up women aren't all that unusual in bars like that.
Here is his email (Minister Mush-Brain) if any here want to send him a note of thanks.
pastor.pete@verizon.net
You may not like my opinion, however, I believe that we have a higher degree of responsibility to our law-abiding citizens, to keep them safe, then we do to a two-time woman killer.
Another way for our Governor to balence the budget?? I wouldn't put ANYTHING past that jerk.
Multiple-murder recidivism:
10/13/00 - Maine
Killer Confesses in Bid to Return Home, Cops Say - Texas Convict Wants to Serve Sentence in Maine
ETNA, Maine -- James Rodney Hicks, convicted last year of trying to kill a 68-year-old woman in her Texas home, didn't much care for the idea of spending the next half-century locked up in a Lone Star state prison, authorities said. If he had to spend the rest of his life behind bars, Hicks told authorities, he preferred to do it in his home state of Maine. Even if that meant confessing to two unsolved murders, authorities said. Hicks' relationship with state police in Maine began in 1977 when he was charged and convicted of killing his first wife, Jennie, who was then 23, McCausland said. Her body was never found. Hicks served nearly six years in prison for the slaying, McCausland said. After his release in 1982, authorities say, Hicks met a woman, Jerilyn Towers, then 34, at a Newport bar. The last time anyone saw Towers alive, she was walking out of the bar with Hicks, McCausland said. Although investigators suspected that Hicks might have had something to do with her disappearance, they had no evidence and he was never arrested, authorities said. Hicks again turned up on police radar screens in 1996, when his longtime, live-in girlfriend, Lynne Willette, 40, vanished. Police suspected that she, too, might have been the victim of foul play, but they had no proof. When Hicks decided some three years ago to move to Texas, there was nothing police and prosecutors in Maine could do to stop him, authorities said. The cases remained stalled until last year, when Hicks was convicted in Texas of attempted murder after he broke into a home. On Tuesday, authorities recovered the first set of remains, buried in a shallow grave at a house Hicks once rented in Etna, McCausland said.
You are absolutely right! I believe that Maine (the trolls in our government) use programs like parolee relocation, as a method of generating revenue. It would come as no surprise to me. This same reasoning was used to justify the importation of thousands of immigrants to our state; however, in that case, the shortsighted legislature did not take into account the cost of managing the social services the immigrants required. I suspect the program resulted in a very significant net loss for the state's coffers.
But look on the bright side, we are now more "ethnically diverse."
Maine police arrest parollee in Colby student murder
By Glenn Adams, Associated Press, 9/23/2003
WATERVILLE, Maine -- A 47-year-old parolee is being held in the abduction and murder of Colby College student Dawn Rossignol, state police said Tuesday.
Maine State Police said they expect the Attorney General's office to charge Edward Hackett with murder in the next couple of days.
Hackett, who was on parole from a Utah prison where he served time for a 1994 kidnapping and robbery, was first arrested Monday at his parents' home in Vassalboro on a charge of parole violation.
Rossignol's body was discovered Wednesday near Messalonskee Stream in Oakland. The Colby senior, 21, was reported missing the day before when she failed to show up for a doctor's appointment in Bangor.
Her car was parked nearby, and police say she was abducted after leaving her dormitory on the campus of the Waterville liberal arts college.
Police said there was no connection between Hackett and Rossignol, and that the murder was a "random act of violence."
Police in Utah said Hackett's first conviction in that state was in 1979 for theft, and he was in and out of the state prison during the 1980s, escaping at least twice.
Maine State Police Lt. Timothy Doyle Doyle said police believe Rossignol was abducted from a parking lot after leaving her dormitory .
Hackett's arrest came a day after a funeral Mass for the dean's list student. Rossignol was from the northern Maine town of Medway.
Hundreds of people packed a church for Rossignol's funeral in St. Agatha. Gov. John Baldacci telephoned Rossignol's parents to express his condolences and pledge the state's commitment to the investigation, a spokesman said.
We're more "morally diverse," too.
and my personal favorite, 9. Oaf.
Can't disagree with you!
Maybe I was too hard on the minister fellow - but where is the sense of responsbilty? Where is the sense of loss for the murder victims?
"I'm sorry that he made those decisions"?
What kind of talk is that? The killer is a THUG through and through.
I agree with you. I live here man, and I dont want some do-gooder/even a benevolent minister/ shipping cons from Vermont to my town. Jesus.
Have been involved in various aspects of prison ministry for almost ten years - have been blessed to witness some miraculous transformations, and of course the other side of the coin is heartbreaking reverses.
Satan works over-time to keep souls from slipping out of his grips, and the bottom line is that we have free will and either believe the "father of lies" or reject him and claim victory through Jesus.
BTW - there is nothing at all "Liberal" about me - I am what is considered (by the MSM) to be a "right-wing fundamentalist nut-job".
Execution for murder. It's the right thing to do.
(And not after 15 years of costly stupid appeals, either.)
I commend you for your efforts but I think a double murderer deserves to be executed, not rehabilitated.
This story doesn't compute.
It says he "stole a pickup truck," but for all we know he thought he was just borrowing the family transportation where he found himself, stuck out in the sticks somewhere. He was probably dry and went into town to get a drink. It's not clear from the story whether he hurt the woman or not.
I agree that it was foolish to take a violent criminal and stick him into a family like that, but what did they expect? If there's any hope for a released criminal it has to involve being in some sort of half-way house situation until he has his head together and some sort of job to occupy his time and support himself. They weren't doing themselves or society any favors by doing what they did, and they weren't doing the released criminal any favors either. I don't know if there was any hope that he might have reformed himself, but if so, this was not the way to handle it.
"That is the reason He is called 'Christ the Redeemer' rather than 'Christ the Moron Driving Around in a Volvo With a "Be Nice to People" Bumper Sticker on It.' "
All I know is I live close to where this happened. Do you want convicted murderers being brought to your neighborhood?
I'm guessing there were house rules.
And I'm guessing that one of the house rules was "Don't take the truck without permission."
Also, just a stab in the dark here, I'd also guess one of the conditions of parole was: "No Drinking".
Just a wild jump to a conclusion - but I'd venture that following laws and rules wasn't high on Hanson list of personal priorities.
Stealing and drinking seemed to come in a tad higher.
Yes, that is why I mentioned "claiming victory through Jesus", not through Ken, or JimBob, or whoever.
But does He needs someone to tell them the Good News, that's where we come in.
But of ourselves we are nothing, the Father doeth the works.
I think these ministers come from the perspective of "forgiveness" though and "redemption." My take is similiar to yours though in that God can forgive and redeem but I want the killers dead.
Who would go into a Court and demand that the judge forgive them because the Bible calls for forgiveness?
Executing the guy after the first murder would have saved at least one life, maybe more. There is only one way to prevent murderers from killing again, and that is to execute them.
"Stealing and drinking seemed to come in a tad higher."
Don't forget well-watered tarts, too.
Well, I was conscious I might sound like I was excusing him. But the fact is, it takes some very tough and capable people to ride herd on an ex-con who has just gotten out of a long term in jail. What I was trying to say is that it wasn't doing him any favors to put him under the charge of people who couldn't handle him or to put temptation in his way. I hate the phrase "tough love," but something like that is what was needed until he was decompressed and ready to try to make it on his own.
See 41.
Errr . . . few options for living in Vermont? What does that mean?
Exactly why Maine and not Vermont?
I sincerely hope that none of your guys or your friend's guys have killed multiple times.
Only six years?
Even a divorce might have been worse than that.
Prevention is a secondary reason.
Execution is simply what the worst murderers deserve.
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