FRANKFORT, Ky. — Tracie Bowman said it felt like a punch to the gut when she learned her daughter's killer might have the chance to cut his life sentence short.
"I was just devastated because it affects everything," Bowman said. "It affects everything."
Tracie's daughter, Helen Nicole Kirk, known by family and friends as Nikki, was killed in 1995 when she was a 16-year-old student at Moore High School.
"She's still 16 to me," Bowman said. "Her pictures only go up to that age and she just stayed that age for me."
Kevin Lamont Adams, then 23, was arrested and convicted of murder, rape, burglary and tampering with evidence. Adams accepted a plea deal that sentenced him to 25 years to life in order to avoid the death penalty.
Bowman said Adams was up for parole for the first time last spring, and she collected almost 5,000 signatures in a petition to the Kentucky Parole Board to keep Adams in prison. The parole board ordered Adams serve out the remainder of his life sentence.
"He didn't deserve to get out of prison," Bowman said. "It was the happiest day of my life when they told me we didn't have to deal with this anymore."
But Bowman's joy was short-lived. She learned just a few weeks earlier about a directive from the Kentucky Parole Board that would block the board from ordering someone to serve out a life sentence at their first parole hearing, which would also be retroactively applied, meaning more than 40 prisoners, including Adams, would be able to get new parole hearings.
"It was very painful because we thought that he might get out," Bowman said. "That parole hearing could have gone a different way."
Other prisoners eligible for new hearings included George Wade, convicted for his role in the murders of two Trinity High School students in 1984, and Roxanne Suleski, a Hardin County mother convicted of murdering her 5-year-old daughter by sealing her in a garbage bag and burying her.
Attorney General Daniel Cameron took the rule to court last week, arguing with Commonwealth's Attorney Jackie Steele that the rule would allow criminals responsible for crimes like rape, murder and kidnapping a chance to cut short their life sentences. Last Friday, a Laurel County judge issued a temporary restraining order against the Kentucky Parole Board, blocking new hearings for the convicted criminals.
"We are grateful that the court acted with urgency to grant the temporary restraining order and stop the Parole Board from giving new hearings to 45 convicted criminals who are responsible for some of the worst crimes in recent history," Cameron wrote in a statement. "The Parole Board failed to provide the court with a valid reason for the new policy. We will continue to fight in court on behalf of Kentucky crime victims and prosecutors to ensure that the Board’s directive is permanently stopped."
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