Illinois prosecutors oppose release of 70-year-old sex offender
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HARVARD, ILL — The Illinois Attorney General will oppose the release of a 70-year-old man who has spent most of his life in prison following his conviction for killing a 3-year-old Harvard, Ill., girl in 1962.
Attorneys for Gary Welsh presented a plan Thursday that would allow his release from a state facility for sexually violent prisoners be under strict conditions.
If approved, Welsh would be placed in housing in the Rockford or Chicago areas and only leave the housing for treatment, job-hunting and other approved activities for at least 30 days, according to a story in the Northwest Herald
The judge in the case has scheduled a hearing for March 18.
Welsh was convicted of suffocated a 3-year-old with a pillow after he raped her in September 1962, when he was 23. Welsh had been rooming with the little girl’s family for about a month. He was left in charge of her and her two brothers while her mother was hospitalized and her father fetched her aunt to watch the children on a more permanent basis.
Welsh served 31 years in prison for the Harvard girl’s murder before being sent to a secure mental health facility.
Source: www.nwherald.com
Feb 15, 2010 at 11:20 a.m.
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Two words--ELECTRIC CHAIR
Feb 12, 2010 at 3:03 p.m.
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Illinois has a system similar to ours where the state must prove his continued danger in a hearing setting similar to a trial. The prisoner, having served his sentence, has the right to petition for release, and the state is not "contemplating letting him out", the state (prosecutors) are going to argue against it.
Feb 12, 2010 at 12:57 p.m.
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And how much money did we spend "protecting" this being in jail? Has justice actually been served? I pity the family of the little girl hearing of this contemplated atrocity!!!
Feb 12, 2010 at 12:06 p.m.
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An eye for an eye. Forget him!
Feb 12, 2010 at 9:34 a.m.
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Why on earth would they even contemplate letting him out! Do they think 40 yrs in prison has made a better man of him?
Feb 12, 2010 at 9 a.m.
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Yup, I agree.
Feb 12, 2010 at 8:55 a.m.
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Never ever let him go!
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