A convicted triple killer from southeast Missouri who’s been incarcerated since 1973 will remain in prison indefinitely.

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 the January 1973 killings of Bank of Grandin president Robert Kitterman, Kitterman’s wife Bertha and their daughter Roberta.

Missouri Department of Corrections (DOC) spokeswoman Karen Pojmann says Delay has chosen to “close” his parole file, which means he won’t be automatically considered for a parole hearing unless he decides the re-open the file.

Carter County Sheriff Richard Stephens is pleased.

“I was very excited for the (Kitterman) family first off by hearing that, so that the family is not going to have to go through the series of hearings and so forth and open up the old wounds per say,” Stephens says.

The victims were tied to trees, before being shot to death.

The “New York Times”, which sent a reporter to southeast Missouri’s Grandin in 1973, says the suspects may have also strapped bank president Robert Kitterman with dynamite.

Sheriff Stephens has urged Missouri’s Probation and Parole Board to deny parole, saying the victims endured “pure evil.”

“I just don’t believe that someone that engaged in that type of crime needs to be on the streets,” says Stephens.

Stephens tells Missourinet the Kitterman family opposes Delay getting out on parole. The Parole Board has previously denied parole for Delay eight times.

Delay will remain in prison, but could ask the Parole Board to re-open the file. Another parole hearing can’t happen unless that occurs.

“If he (Delay) does, then we’re going to do whatever is necessary on our part to make sure that the Parole Board has the wishes of the family and the local authorities and citizens, you know, forefront in their minds,” Stephens says.

Missouri’s Probation and Parole Board had scheduled a parole hearing for Delay for last week, but he declined it.

Delay is currently incarcerated at the maximum-security Potosi Correctional Center in Mineral Point.

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

The DOC tells Missourinet Cowin was sentenced to prison in 1973, and was paroled in September 1995. DOC spokesman David Owen says Cowin returned to prison for a parole violation in 2008, and was paroled again in November 2013. Owen says Cowin, who is now 65, is currently under parole supervision in Springfield.

Rector also went to state prison in 1973. Owen says Rector was paroled in January 1994, and died while on parole supervision in October 2004.

Grandin, a town of about 245 residents, is northwest of Poplar Bluff.

 

Click here to listen to the full five-minute interview between Missourinet news director Brian Hauswirth and Carter County Sheriff Richard Stephens, which was recorded on October 20, 2017: