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."
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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