Barbour Gives Relief to 4 ‘Domestic' Killers, of 5 Total | Jackson Free Press | Jackson, MS

Barbour Gives Relief to 4 ‘Domestic' Killers, of 5 Total

Gov. Haley Barbour is just following Mississippi tradition, his office says, when he frees killers working in his mansion. Four of them killed wives and girlfriends.

Gov. Haley Barbour is just following Mississippi tradition, his office says, when he frees killers working in his mansion. Four of them killed wives and girlfriends. Photo by Courtesy Mac Gordon

Also see: Barbour Helps Domestic Killers, Jackson Free Press, July 28, 2008
Editorial: Barbour, Clean Up the Mess, Aug. 6, 2008
Editorial: Women's Fund Gets It Wrong, April 28, 2010
Domestic Terrorism, Oct. 6, 2010 (Includes new details about Klasky's murderer)
JFP Archive: Domestic Violence in Mississippi

Bobby Hays Clark murdered on-again, off-again girlfriend Veronica Conner in 1996 by shooting her in the neck with a 25-caliber automatic, hitting her carotid artery. Clark broke into Conner's house on Wood Street in Batesvillle, Miss., and found her in bed with her current boyfriend. Clark beat the boyfriend with a mop handle before he murdered Conner.

"Veronica and Bobby, they kind of separated," Captain Paul Shivers of the Batesville police detective division told the Jackson Free Press. "She did want to get away from him, but she was still talking to him." Shivers echoed a familiar refrain when he said that women in domestic abuse situations feel "obligated" to their abusers somehow. Shivers believes Conner had filed misdemeanor charges against Clark in the weeks prior to her murder.

"Griffin (Conner's boyfriend) … was hiding under the bed because he was afraid he was going to get shot," Shivers said. "That's a good place to be, 'cause he's still living. … What's to keep you from getting rid of the witness?"

Originally charged with capital murder, Clark pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter, plus aggravated assault and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon in October 1996. He received a sentence of 18 years on the manslaughter charge and 20 years suspended on the aggravated assault charge. He was released on probation in April 2008. Clark was previously convicted for aggravated assault in 1983.

Apparently, Gov. Barbour did not notify Conner's family of Clark's pardon prior to his release. Shivers received instructions from the district attorney's office to notify the family just this past week; to his knowledge, the family did not know of the pardon until one of his officers went to their home.

A Jackson Free Press investigation shows that Clark joins Paul Joseph Warnock and Clarence Jones as domestic murderers pardoned by Gov. Haley Barbour, who also suspended Michael Graham's murder sentence in July, setting him free. Graham was convicted in 1989 for murdering his ex-wife, Adrienne Klasky Graham, by shooting her in the head with a 12-gauge shotgun at point-blank range.

Since the beginning of the year, Barbour has pardoned one other murderer, Willie James Kimble.

Kimble and two accomplices lured elderly Luther Roberts out of his house, then murdered and robbed him in 1991. A Leake County jury found Kimble guilty of murder and sentenced him to life in prison in May 1992.

Additional reporting by Sophie McNeil and Maha Mohamed.

See also:

Barbour Helps Domestic Killers, Jackson Free Press, July 28, 2008
Raw Emotions Greet A Murderer's Release, CBS News, Aug. 2, 2008

CORRECTION APPENDED:

The story has been edited to remove Larry Harper from the list of prisoners Barbour has pardoned or suspended. In fact, Larry Harper has not received a pardon at all; former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove suspended his sentence Jan. 12, 2004.

Last week, Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Christopher B. Epps told the Biloxi Sun-Herald that Larry Harper, convicted in Scott County on charges of homicide, aggravated assault and possession of a weapon by a convicted felon in June 1999, received a suspended sentence from Barbour in December 2006.

The Department of Corrections then corrected the statement to say that Musgrove suspended Harper's sentence in January 2004, and that Barbour had pardoned him in July 2008.

The Department of Corrections then corrected themselves again, saying that Musgrove suspended Harper's sentence in 2004 and Barbour did not pardon him.

The MDOC correction means that of five prisoners Barbour has assisted in recent weeks, four were for men who killed wives or girlfriends.

Info on Harper, whose sentence was suspended by Musgrove:

Larry Harper confessed to murdering Willie R. Roberts in January 1983 after Roberts evicted him from Eddie's Café for "starting trouble," according to the Jan. 9, 1983, Scott County Sheriff's department offense report. Harper was re-arrested in April 1999 on charges of aggravated assault and possession of a firearm by a felon. In that incident, Harper rammed another vehicle, brandished a weapon and ran a car off the road and into a ditch following an argument with the vehicle's occupants.

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