Ex-death row inmate could be free by 2020 in sisters’ deaths

ST. LOUIS – A Missouri man who admitted to participating in the rape and killing of two sisters who were pushed from an abandoned St. Louis bridge could be released as soon as 2020.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that 47-year-old Reginald Clemons has his first parole board hearing next June because the killings of 19-year-old Robin Kerry and 20-year-old Julie Kerry occurred before 1994 when the Legislature began imposing mandatory minimum prison terms for violent felonies. Missouri Department of Corrections spokesman Garry Brix says Clemons’ earliest eligible release date is Nov. 9, 2020.

Clemons initially was sentenced to death. But after the Missouri Supreme Court overturned his convictions, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five consecutive life terms . He’s simultaneously serving a 15-year term for assaulting a prison guard in 2007.

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Information from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, http://www.stltoday.com