Though he acknowledged discussing the case with the state parole
board, Huckabee said that conversation was "simply part of a broader
discussion" initiated at the request of the board chairman.
"I did not ask them to do anything," he said.
Three board members recalled it differently.
They said Huckabee raised the issue of DuMond's release, asking to
discuss the matter with them in a closed session.
They said his religious beliefs, and the influence of the evangelical
community from which he came, drove him.
"We felt pressured by him," said board member Ermer Pondexter.
"I felt compelled to do it. . . . It was a favor for the governor."
Looking back, she added, "I regret it."
........................................................................................................
The story of the convict, the preacher and the governor who wants to
be president rings with Gothic details -- rape and castration, a
corrupt county sheriff and state politics.
Finally, there is murder.
It opens in 1984, when a 17-year-old cheerleader, the daughter of a
mortician called "Stevie" Stevens, was kidnapped from Forrest City by
a man in a red pickup.
The man drove her to a field and raped her.
He used a knife to cut off her bra.
The Forrest City case drew public attention, because the cheerleader
was a distant cousin of then-Gov. Bill Clinton.
The police arrested DuMond, a skinny Vietnam War veteran, handyman and
father of six.
He had been suspected in a rape in Texas and as an accomplice to
murder in Oklahoma.
.................................................................................................
DuMond was sentenced to life in prison for rape, plus 20 years for the
kidnapping.
Clinton ignored his pleas for parole or a sentence reduction.
Once in prison, DuMond said he found religion.
"I became his spiritual director," Cole said.
"He was a nice fella, and it was hard to believe he could have done
what he was accused of doing. And Wayne claimed to be saved. So, we'd
sit and talk and pray for two hours, and other times he'd call me on
the phone a lot. Collect. He was just wanting to know if I'd made any
headway finding people who could help his situation."
..................................................................................................
Cole said he talked to "probably a hundred people" about his hope of
winning DuMond's release, turning foremost to the evangelical
community.
He said many evangelicals were encouraged that DuMond had claimed a
religious conversion, and that many joined Cole in writing to Huckabee
about DuMond's situation.
The clincher, he said, was their belief that DuMond had been "saved."
"All of them thought Wayne was innocent," said Cole.
"And the governor knew about it. We talked about it together. But Mike
was very careful. He was cautious about saying too much. In an
elevated position like governor, you've got to be careful."
.................................................................................................................
Huckabee said the DuMond case was already "on my desk" when he became
governor in July 1996.
He announced that he was considering a commutation.
Later, he acknowledged, he wrote a letter to the prisoner saying
parole was a better option.
"Dear Wayne. . . . My desire is that you be released from prison," the
governor wrote.
"I feel now that parole is the best way. . . ."
The rape victim, Ashley Stevens, became enraged.
She and prosecutor Fletcher Long met with Huckabee at the Capitol.
They warned him that DuMond would strike again.
At one point in the meeting, Stevens recalled, she stood up, put her
face next to Huckabee's and told the governor:
"This is how close I was to DuMond. I'll never forget his face, and
you'll never forget mine."
The meeting ended, and Long, a Republican, could tell the governor was
unmoved:
"Most of what I think about him would be unprintable. His actions were
just about as arrogant as you can get."
The prosecutor added that Huckabee and Arkansas evangelicals were
conned by DuMond's contention that he had been "saved" -- a common
ruse by prisoners.
"If you're religiously converted," Long said, "how do you go out and
kill two women in Missouri?"
....................................................................................................
Before DuMond could be paroled, he had to find another state that
would take him, a process that took several years.
Texas did not want DuMond, nor did Florida.
A new wife he had met while in prison was from Missouri.
So, in 1999, after serving 14 years of his sentence, DuMond relocated
to the Kansas City area.
Less than a year later, Carol Shields was suffocated in a friend's
apartment.
Scrapings of DNA under her fingernails led to DuMond.
The day before DuMond was arrested in the slaying, another woman, Sara
Andrasek, was killed in much the same way.
DuMond was convicted of killing Shields and in 2004 was sentenced to
life in prison, this time without parole.
He was not charged in the second slaying.
He died in 2005 in prison, of cancer of the vocal chords.
He was 55.
Prosecutor Dan White of Clay County, Mo., the man who put him away for
good, said:
"The world's a better place without Wayne DuMond in it."
From The Los Angeles Times, 12/8/07:
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-huckabee8dec08,0,540525.story?coll=la-home-center
Parole officials: Huckabee pushed rapist's release
Former Arkansas governor says he didn't free the man who later killed
at least one woman, but board members say they felt pressured.
By Richard A. Serrano, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
Pastor Jay D. Cole had two close friends.
One was an inmate in the Arkansas state penitentiary.
There, the minister would sit with Wayne DuMond "and pray and read the
Bible."
For a while, the prisoner's wife even lived in Cole's home.
Cole's friendship with Mike Huckabee ran deeper, back to when Huckabee
was the youngest-ever head of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention.
The two men produced Bible lessons on videotape.
"We worked heavily with him when he got politically involved too,"
Cole said.
A little over 10 years ago, the paths of these three men merged in
Little Rock, the state capital, where Huckabee was the new governor.
With Cole's urging, and with DuMond insisting he was "born again,"
Huckabee played a key role in setting free a rapist who was supposed
to serve many more years, say three of the seven members of the state
board that paroled DuMond.
After being released, DuMond moved to Missouri, where less than a year
later he suffocated the mother of three in a Kansas City suburb.
Police suspect that he killed another woman there as well.
How a convicted rapist went free has become an issue in today's
increasingly heated presidential campaign.
_________________________________________________
Harry
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