(This is part two of Brian Hauswirth’s series on the Dallas Delay case)

A convicted triple killer from southeast Missouri will receive his ninth parole hearing, because of a quirk in Missouri law.

Convicted triple killer Dallas Delay is incarcerated in Potosi (2017 photo courtesy of the Missouri Department of Corrections)

78-year-old Dallas Delay is serving three life sentences for first degree murder for the January 1973 killings of Bank of Grandin president Robert Kitterman, Kitterman’s wife Bertha and their 17-year-old daughter Roberta.

Missouri Department of Corrections (DOC) spokeswoman Karen Pojmann says Missouri’s Probation and Parole Board has scheduled an October 16th parole hearing for Delay.

Under current Missouri law that took effect in 1990, anyone convicted of first degree murder cannot be paroled. The punishment is either death by lethal injection or life in prison without the possibility of parole, “except by act of the governor.”

However, Delay is essentially “grandfathered in” under the old rules because of his 1973 conviction date. That means he gets a parole hearing every five years.

Missouri’s Probation and Parole Board has previously denied parole for Dallas Delay eight times.

Delay has been incarcerated for 44 years.

Carter County Sheriff Richard Stephens says he was “shocked” to find out about Delay’s Monday parole hearing from a Missourinet reporter.

“But then my mind immediately went to whatever I needed to do to safeguard the (Kitterman) family and the community,” Stephens says.

Sheriff Stephens confirms he’ll travel to the maximum-security Potosi Correctional Center (PCC) in Mineral Point for Monday’s parole hearing for Delay. Stephens plans to address both Delay and the Parole Board.

“You know, although that he (Delay) is serving his sentence that I could not agree with the (board) option of allowing him parole,” says Stephens.

Prosecutors also convicted Lloyde Cowin and Jerry Rector of three counts of first degree murder in the 1973 case.

Missouri DOC spokesman David Owen says Cowin is currently under parole supervision in Springfield, and that Rector died in 2004.

 

Click here to listen to Missourinet news director Brian Hauswirth’s full interview with Carter County Sheriff Richard Stephens, which was recorded on October 4, 2017: