Parole denied 2nd man involved in 1982 slaying

The parole board last year denied parole for another man convicted in the crime.

COLUMBUS — A second man convicted in the 1982 shooting death of a Boardman man has been denied parole.

The family of the late Doug Skica learned this week that the Ohio Parole Board denied parole for Jerome Thompson. Thompson is scheduled to appear before the board again in September 2014.

Thompson, 52, formerly of the Cleveland area, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in Skica’s death. He is also serving time for unrelated offenses from Cuyahoga County.

The parole board decided that Thompson wasn’t “suitable for release at this time based on the serious nature of his crime,” said JoEllen Lyons, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

Thompson is housed in Grafton Correctional Institution.

In November, the parole board denied parole for James Lee Hall, also formerly of the Cleveland area, also convicted in Skica’s death. Hall’s commitment was continued until November 2012.

Thompson and Hall were among four men who followed Doug Skica’s father, Dan, home from the family’s Mayfield Heights restaurant to rob him.

When the elder Skica arrived at his home in the Sherwood Forest development, two of the men pistol-whipped him, demanding money. The other two men stayed in the car.

The two men got into the house by threatening to shoot the elder Skica.

Doug, 29, a Canfield High School and Kent State University graduate, was shot when he tried to intervene as one of the men hit his younger brother and swung at his mother.

Dan and Debbie Skica, Doug’s brother and sister-in-law, of Youngstown, and other family members fought the parole of those convicted of the crime.

Charges against one of the other men involved were dropped when he cooperated with authorities, and the fourth was released from prison in 2004.