Early prison release request denied

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

A judge has denied an early-release request from a 69-year-old man, who has less than two years left in his 13-year prison term for fatally shooting his girlfriend in the back.

Judge Shirley J. Christian of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court ruled this month that Edward C. Anderson will stay locked up for the July 15, 2004, fatal shooting of Mary M. Thompson, 37, after a domestic dispute in the East Philadelphia Avenue home Anderson and Thompson shared.

Anderson’s trial on the initial murder charge ended abruptly March 21, 2007, when he pleaded guilty to the lesser offense of voluntary manslaughter.

Judge James C. Evans sentenced Anderson to 10 years in prison on the manslaughter charge, plus three years consecutively on the firearm specification, with credit for the 982 jail days Anderson had already served.

Anderson, a Vietnam veteran who is in the Franklin Medical Center in Columbus, is scheduled for release July 6, 2017.

Judge Evans denied Anderson’s earlier judicial release requests in January and September 2014.

Anderson has been seeking judicial release based on his age, health problems, lack of a prior criminal record and good behavior in prison.