The front-page question in bold type is haunting: "Why wasn't he still in prison?"
"It doesn’t make sense,” says a daughter of the 84-year-old victim. "Why was he out? I just don’t understand.”
The Free Press asks that about paroled inmate Peter Jones, charged with stabbing and strangling a Novi grandmother Jan. 13, after discovering that he had "been given five years’ of jail credit he wasn’t entitled to."
A review of review of court and corrections records.by reporter Gina Damron uncovered that chilling misstep with fatal consequences for Bernice Schaufele, 84. Jones is accused of strangling her and then stabbing her in the neck at a condo building where he was staying. He's charged with first-degree premeditated murder and felony murder,
Kym Worthy, the Wayne County prosecutor, confirms "a very tragic set of circumstances."
Jones, now 46, was paroled in 2012 after serving six years for a 1998 death. Damron documents a deadly error in her Page 1 centerpiece:
The Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office acknowledged last week that Peter Jones, who was serving time for a fatal stabbing in Detroit, was given 1,825 days of jail credit that he wasn’t allowed under Michigan law. He was released on May 15, 2012. . . .
Authorities acknowledged to the Free Press that Jones got jail credit he wasn’t entitled to, but they are not able to explain why. . . .
The Free Press reviewed hundreds of pages of court documents and Corrections Department records from Michigan, Florida and Louisiana, trying to determine why Jones was a free man when Schaufele was killed. He had been in and out of prison for robbery and burglary and had been convicted of a brutal [1997] attack in Florida.
Damron speaks with Kim Lukacs, one of the victim's two daughters:
“All the things that he has done and the severity of his crimes . . . it doesn’t make sense,” said Lukacs, of Charlotte, N.C. “Why was he out? I just don’t understand it.”
Earlier at Deadline Detroit:
Murder on West Glen Haven: Evidence Is Presented Against Novi Parolee, Feb. 12
