Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Minister had hope for ex-con in Maine
Portland Press Herald ^ | May 23, 2005 | Associated Press

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."


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; US: Maine
KEYWORDS: earlyrelease; murder; parole; prison; probation
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-46 next last
This guy killed two women and was let out to reintegrate with society.

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.

1 posted on 05/23/2005 6:06:19 AM PDT by Fido969
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Fido969

There were reports that the woman he picked up at the bar showed signs of being beat up. She could have been victem #3!


2 posted on 05/23/2005 6:10:23 AM PDT by MrLee
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Fido969

How many people do you have to kill before you are just locked up forever?

What a ridiculous story.


3 posted on 05/23/2005 6:10:54 AM PDT by jocon307 (Legal immigrant Irish grandmother rolls in grave, yet again.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Fido969
"In my mind it was like a Walt Disney ending to a movie," Fiske recalled.

The liberals tells us the cons need help. Maybe it's the liberals who need help more, though.

4 posted on 05/23/2005 6:13:18 AM PDT by Brilliant
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: jocon307

What liberalism has wrought.


5 posted on 05/23/2005 6:14:11 AM PDT by Fithee (US Fifth Column = Leftist Press + John Kerry + Clintonistas + Leftist Socialist Democrats)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Fido969

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."


6 posted on 05/23/2005 6:14:39 AM PDT by Grendel9
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Fido969
The pastor who drove Kent Hanson to Maine after he was released from prison had high hopes for the ex-convict.

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!

7 posted on 05/23/2005 6:15:47 AM PDT by Shortwave (Ted Kennedy’s rhetoric has killed more American soldiers than his car has killed women.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Fido969
Fiske said, "it may have been better to have kept him in."

No SH** Sherlock!

8 posted on 05/23/2005 6:17:09 AM PDT by Semper Paratus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Fido969

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!


9 posted on 05/23/2005 6:18:38 AM PDT by PeterPrinciple
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Shortwave
I think that the state get a reimbursement from other states for taking their parolees. There have been a few cases where criminals relocated right after they get out of prison have committed terrible crimes right after moving to Maine. I tried to look into this a few years ago, but everyone clammed up when I started asking questions.
10 posted on 05/23/2005 6:19:38 AM PDT by Fido969 (I see Red People!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: jocon307
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.

Did it ever occur to the dumbass that "he didn't see that side of Hanson" because he's not a woman? Sheesh.

11 posted on 05/23/2005 6:20:48 AM PDT by hellinahandcart
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Fido969

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.


12 posted on 05/23/2005 6:24:10 AM PDT by justshutupandtakeit (Public Enemy #1, the RATmedia.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Fido969

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.


13 posted on 05/23/2005 6:24:25 AM PDT by PubliusEXMachina (Ashely's Story)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MrLee
There were reports that the woman he picked up at the bar showed signs of being beat up. She could have been victem #3!

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.

14 posted on 05/23/2005 6:26:53 AM PDT by Grut
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Fido969

Here is his email (Minister Mush-Brain) if any here want to send him a note of thanks.

pastor.pete@verizon.net


15 posted on 05/23/2005 6:27:10 AM PDT by PubliusEXMachina (Ashely's Story)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: PeterPrinciple
Well, I appreciate what you do, and thank you.

However I know too many criminals who have gone back to their own ways. We owe these people nothing - they chose to break the rules of society, they chose to rape, assault, rob and murder. Why should I risk my life because of some social experiment?

The fact remains recidivism is very high with these types of criminals. And, I have seen convicts thrust out of prison who just plain were not ready. Sure, these people knew exactly the right thing to say to their caseworkers - but had not truly accepted responsibility for what they had done, and were not willing to do what it took to make an honest living in society.

I'm not saying that rehabilitation is not possible - but when you try to reintegrate a 2 time killer for state financial reasons, then something has gone terrible wrong. A few years ago a killer relocated to Maine killed again.

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.

16 posted on 05/23/2005 6:30:32 AM PDT by Fido969 (I see Red People!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Fido969

Another way for our Governor to balence the budget?? I wouldn't put ANYTHING past that jerk.


17 posted on 05/23/2005 6:33:39 AM PDT by MrLee
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: justshutupandtakeit
My prejudice, yes, but it seems too typical. In my old age I have met enough of these "reformed" criminals to be less than wholly impressed. It seems to be a liberal tenant, though, that we should give criminals a full slate of rights and "understanding", while regulating and leaving the law-abiding to fend for themselves.
18 posted on 05/23/2005 6:33:40 AM PDT by Fido969 (I see Red People!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: PeterPrinciple


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.


19 posted on 05/23/2005 6:37:14 AM PDT by Fido969 (I see Red People!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Fido969
Fido:

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."

20 posted on 05/23/2005 6:37:32 AM PDT by Shortwave (Ted Kennedy’s rhetoric has killed more American soldiers than his car has killed women.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-46 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson