Family fighting parole for convict

One of the men convicted in the crime will appear before the parole board Nov. 14 in Columbus.

By DENISE DICK

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

BOARDMAN — The family of a township man killed during a 1982 robbery at his parents’ home plans to attend the parole hearing for one of the men convicted in the crime.

Doug Skica, 29, was shot and killed July 25, 1982, when four young Cleveland area men followed his father, Dan Skica, home from the family’s Mayfield Heights restaurant to rob him.

Debbie Skica, who is married to Dan Skica, Doug’s brother, said family members plan to attend the 1 p.m. Nov. 14 hearing in Columbus before the parole board for James Lee Hall, 54, formerly of the Cleveland area.

Debbie keeps track of the parole hearings for the men since her mother-in-law’s death in 2004. “I promised my mother-in-law that I would,” she said.

A jury convicted Hall of involuntary manslaughter, aggravated robbery and aggravated burglary. There was apparently confusion over which of the four men fired the fatal shot.

A second man, Jerome Thompson, 52, also formerly of the Cleveland area, pleaded to involuntary manslaughter and is set for an institutional hearing in early November before one parole board member.

That hearing is closed, so family members can’t attend.

An institutional hearing is an early step in the parole process.

Two others stayed in the car. Charges were dropped against one when he cooperated with authorities. The fourth man was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and released from prison in 2004.

On the night of Doug’s death, two of the four men approached the elder Skica, also named Dan, in the driveway of the family’s home in the Sherwood Forest development and pistol whipped him, looking for cash.

Doug Skica let the men into the house when they threatened to shoot his father. They beat him, too.

Doug’s mother, Gloria, and teenage brother, Matt, had locked themselves in a bedroom.

One of the men kept the elder Dan in the kitchen while the second directed Doug back to the bedroom that held his mother and brother.

Mother and son let one of the robbers into the bedroom when he held a gun on Doug.

The man hit Matt and took a swing at Gloria but tripped. That’s when Doug intervened, fighting with the man.

The other man heard the commotion and ran to the bedroom. There were two shots fired. One struck Doug in the face, killing him instantly.

The younger Dan Skica said his brother’s murder devastated the family. His parents didn’t want to spend time in their home. His father couldn’t concentrate on the family sandwich restaurant business and lost it.

The elder Dan Skica developed dementia that the family believes was hastened by the pistol whipping. He went into a a nursing home and died in 1994.

People who want to tell the parole board whether they support or oppose Hall’s parole may address letters to the Ohio Parole Board and mail them to Mahoning County Victim-Witness Program, Mahoning County Courthouse,120 Market St., Third Floor, Youngstown, Ohio 44503.

Doug worked as an architect at Dalton, Dalton and Newport, Cleveland, at the time of his death. He was a graduate of Canfield High School and Kent State University where he participated in sports. During his senior year at Kent, he traveled to Europe, studying architecture there.

His brother, Dan, keeps a book of the sketches that Doug created during that study abroad.

Shortly after Doug’s death, some of his architecture friends from college established the Douglas Skica Memorial Travel Scholarship in Architecture in his memory to help fund travel for other Kent architecture students.

That fund remains and contributions to it may be sent to the KSU Foundation, P.O. Box 5190, Kent, Ohio 44242. Checks should be made payable to KSU Foundation with Douglas Skica Scholarship in the memo line.

Contributions to the scholarship also may be made online at www.kent.edu.