Lizzie Kunde
Parole denied in '72 cop killing Hillside officers, family rally to fight murderer's release
Despite his pleas that he now knows the value of life, the man who strangled a Hillside police officer in 1972 has been denied his request for parole.
The 11-member Illinois Prisoner Review Board voted unanimously Thursday to deny the parole request of Silas Fletcher, serving a 200-year sentence for the 1972 death of Hillside Police Officer Anthony Raymond.
At a parole hearing last week at the Dixon Correctional Center where he is an inmate, Fletcher gave his strongest argument ever in his quest for freedom from prison.
He told the state board that a heart attack and bypass surgery last year "caused me to become acutely aware of how precious life "I am now aware of what I deprived Officer Raymond and his family of. I have seen my grand-children. He never will," said a tearful Fletcher during an hourlong plea for his release.
"I don't believe Fletcher," said Hillside Police Chief George Kudrna, a detective at the time of the crime who helped, with hundreds of other officers, to solve the Raymond murder, one of the most notorious crimes in Chicago suburban history. "As long as I live and as long as there is a Hillside Police Department we will be there to protest Mr. Fletcher," Kudrna said.
Fletcher killed Raymond, 25, the father of two young children, after the officer stopped him on an expressway ramp on the Eisenhower Expressway for a traffic violation.
Because Fletcher and his two accomplices had just robbed a local restaurant, they took Raymond hostage at gunpoint. They took him back to Fletcher's Hanover Park home and strangled and stabbed him.
There was a yearlong nationwide search for Raymond before his body was found in a shallow grave in a northern Wisconsin resort community. Last week, Fletcher said, I am asking his family to forgive me." But Raymond's family have been the strongest opponents of his ever being released.
Mary Ann Blair, Raymond's sister, and Charles and Anne Raymond, his parents, travel annually to state prison to oppose Fletcher's release.
"He is an evil person and no one should ever believe that he should be released," Blair said. "We will be here every time he is asking for parole."
The annual parole hearings are accompanied by annual petition gatherings in the western suburbs, which this year produced 18,000 signatures opposing his re lease. One of Fletcher's accomplices,. Robert Martinez, is also serving a 200-year term at Dixon and his parole hearing is scheduled for next month. A third alleged accomplice was shot to death in Indiana by police in connection with another crime before he could be charged in the Raymond murder.
The state parole board also on Thursday unanimously denied the parole request made by Paul Fontani, 37, convicted of shooting to death Downers Grove Police Officer Richard Barth in 1974.
Fontani had been involved in a home burglary and was hiding' with another youth in a wooded: area of a village park when Barth' approached them. Fontani had a, gun and shot Barth.
He was sentenced to 100 years in state prison.
By Art Barnum Tribune Staff Writer: Chicago Tribune (Chicago, IL) Fri, Feb 17, 1995 ·Page 179
The 11-member Illinois Prisoner Review Board voted unanimously Thursday to deny the parole request of Silas Fletcher, serving a 200-year sentence for the 1972 death of Hillside Police Officer Anthony Raymond.
At a parole hearing last week at the Dixon Correctional Center where he is an inmate, Fletcher gave his strongest argument ever in his quest for freedom from prison.
He told the state board that a heart attack and bypass surgery last year "caused me to become acutely aware of how precious life "I am now aware of what I deprived Officer Raymond and his family of. I have seen my grand-children. He never will," said a tearful Fletcher during an hourlong plea for his release.
"I don't believe Fletcher," said Hillside Police Chief George Kudrna, a detective at the time of the crime who helped, with hundreds of other officers, to solve the Raymond murder, one of the most notorious crimes in Chicago suburban history. "As long as I live and as long as there is a Hillside Police Department we will be there to protest Mr. Fletcher," Kudrna said.
Fletcher killed Raymond, 25, the father of two young children, after the officer stopped him on an expressway ramp on the Eisenhower Expressway for a traffic violation.
Because Fletcher and his two accomplices had just robbed a local restaurant, they took Raymond hostage at gunpoint. They took him back to Fletcher's Hanover Park home and strangled and stabbed him.
There was a yearlong nationwide search for Raymond before his body was found in a shallow grave in a northern Wisconsin resort community. Last week, Fletcher said, I am asking his family to forgive me." But Raymond's family have been the strongest opponents of his ever being released.
Mary Ann Blair, Raymond's sister, and Charles and Anne Raymond, his parents, travel annually to state prison to oppose Fletcher's release.
"He is an evil person and no one should ever believe that he should be released," Blair said. "We will be here every time he is asking for parole."
The annual parole hearings are accompanied by annual petition gatherings in the western suburbs, which this year produced 18,000 signatures opposing his re lease. One of Fletcher's accomplices,. Robert Martinez, is also serving a 200-year term at Dixon and his parole hearing is scheduled for next month. A third alleged accomplice was shot to death in Indiana by police in connection with another crime before he could be charged in the Raymond murder.
The state parole board also on Thursday unanimously denied the parole request made by Paul Fontani, 37, convicted of shooting to death Downers Grove Police Officer Richard Barth in 1974.
Fontani had been involved in a home burglary and was hiding' with another youth in a wooded: area of a village park when Barth' approached them. Fontani had a, gun and shot Barth.
He was sentenced to 100 years in state prison.
By Art Barnum Tribune Staff Writer: Chicago Tribune (Chicago, IL) Fri, Feb 17, 1995 ·Page 179
Date & Place:
in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois United States
