One of the men responsible for the late 1982 murder of a Niles police officer will remain in prison at least for 10 more years.

Randy Fellows, 58, who is serving a 30-year to life sentence for the shooting death of officer John Utlak, will be eligible for his next parole hearing in June 2032, according to information recently posted on the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction website.

Fellows had a parole hearing in August outside his cell at Trumbull Correctional Institution in Warren.

Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins, who had written a letter to the parole board objecting to any release of Fellows, said he is pleased with the outcome.

“I am absolutely satisfied,” Watkins said. “Now if we can keep him there for 10-year increments until he is no more.”

In his letter, Watkins explained about Fellows’ continuous “character flaws with explosive and impulsive tendencies,” which also has marked his behavioral record in prison.

Fellows, along with Fred Joseph Jr., were convicted in 1983 of the premeditated murder and robbery of Utlak, which took place in a parking lot of a Weathersfield Township steel mill. Fellows also was denied parole in 2012, while Joseph was denied parole in 2021.

Joseph, however, was only 17 when he murdered Utlak on Dec. 8, 1982, so a recently passed state law allows juvenile offenders more opportunities at parole. That next chance for Joseph comes in 2026, prison records show.

FACTS OF THE CASE

Watkins said Fellows, who was 18 at the time, was the driving force behind the crime.

“The plan to kill officer Utlak was thought out in advance and done in cold blood,” Watkins wrote to the parole board.

“It was his (Fellows) gun that killed the officer. It was his ammunition. … It was his mother’s car that he used to drive to that fatal ambush. It was his phone call and falsehoods to officer Utlak that brought the officer to meet the vicious duo.”

Watkins said Fellows gave Joseph the gun — a .22 caliber revolver — to shoot the officer at point-blank range in the head with bullets that were bitten. The prosecutor said offenders often try to alter the bullets to mess up ballistics evidence.

Fellows and Joseph were arrested in Cheyenne, Wyo., a few days after the murder. The testimony of a hitchhiker, whom they picked up in their travels, was vital in getting the two men convicted, Watkins said.

The hitchhiker, Arthur “Skip” Krause, testified he learned the motive for the crime was the money the officer had on him and the fact that Utlak was telling people on the streets that the two were “narc-ing,” or reporting drug activity among the youth in Niles.

A lawyer with the Ohio Public Defender’s office, Laura E. Austen, said her policy is not to comment on a defendant’s parole hearing.