For the first time in at least a decade, the Massachusetts Parole Board has issued no decisions in December on life sentence cases, leaving incarcerated individuals and victims’ families in limbo.
Overall, about 100 life sentence decisions were made this year, including granting parole to a man who described himself as a “monster” and a Western Massachusetts man who is determined to turn his past into a warning and a lifeline for at-risk youth. However, parole was denied for a woman who killed her mother over “satanic curses” and for a man whose family member called him the “devil.”
The lack of releases this month comes amid one of the most consequential years for life sentence reviews in Massachusetts history…