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WARREN -- Sheldon Jackson was granted parole this week after nearly 30 years in prison for the aggravated murder of 79-year-old Theodore Emerson during a home invasion in a Warren home in 1993.
With the ruling, Jackson, 52, will be released on Dec. 18 and upon release will be placed into a halfway house and subjected to five years of parole supervision.
Parole board chairwoman Lisa Hoying read the 5-4 decision after a two-hour board hearing where the mother and sister of Jackson spoke in favor of his release.
Arguing on Jackson's behalf, the Ohio Public Defenders office argued that Jackson had served in a position of trust as staff barber for several years behind the walls of Grafton Correctional Institution in good standing in his recent history at the state prison.
The attorney illustrated Jackson's long-term goal upon release will be to teach barbering skills after having previously worked in a downtown Warren barber shop.
Trumbull County Assistant Prosecutor Charles Morrow opposed the release of Jackson during the hearing in Columbus because of what he described as horrific acts of violence that Jackson was convicted of inflicting on an elderly man in his Warren home.
Morrow noted to the board that Jackson had a history of repeated violations throughout his stay in the correctional institution and gave a brief summary of the case, in which Jackson had repeatedly assaulted and stabbed Mr. Emerson with a screwdriver, which led to his death shortly before his 79th birthday.
The night of the home invasion, Jackson and his two-co-defendants forced their way into the Emerson couple's Jefferson Street SW home and knocked Theodore Emerson down a flight of stairs into the basement. Jackson and another assailant then followed the elderly man into the basement were he was severely beaten. A third assailant went upstairs where he beat and stabbed 74-year-old Kathryn Emerson.
During the home invasion the men stole personal items and $46 in cash.
For two weeks after the assault and robbery, Kathryn was hospitalized in critical condition. Following a move to Pennsylvania, she later died, unable to ever testify against the men due to her injuries.
The Emersons' grandson, Ernest Emerson, spoke to board members via telephone to express his and his families grievances against the release of Jackson.
"He doesn't deserve to get out because my grandfather couldn't come back," Ernest Emerson told the board, saying at the time of the murder, he was serving in the U.S. Army. "I had to fly home to see my grandfather die in the hospital."
Jackson's guilty plea helped take the death penalty off the table. The case qualified for the death penalty because the murder was committed while undertaking other felony crimes.
Having been apart of many parole hearings over his tenure as prosecutor, Dennis Watkins acknowledged in his response the difficult decision placed before the board stating in one of his letters, ""I know the board will -- as always -- make its own independent judgment in this case as you (parole board members) do in all of them, and I am experienced enough to know that at times our arguments may not prevail, nonetheless… you should know how (our victims feel today) and that this office will always vigorously argue on behalf of victims and seeing justice done for the community."
Jackson's co-defendant, Warren Cromety, will have a parole board hearing in September 2026, while the third co-defendant, Carvin Clemmons, has since completed his prison term.