State board should release killer’s records, nix parole

Thirty-NINE years ago, Gary Betz invaded the Riviera Inn, a Newton Township tavern near Lake Milton armed with a shotgun and confronted owner Ronald Goche who was counting out the night’s receipts. Goche encouraged Betz to take the money, and he would not report the theft to police. Instead a merciless Betz shot the bar owner in the head, killing him over a measly $138 in cash.

Betz was sentenced to life in prison for the heinous and heartless crime, but the Ohio Parole Board showed him magnanimous mercy in 2007 and freed him from incarceration. He was imprisoned anew after drunken-driving crimes in 2010 and 2011. Now, the deranged killer has the audacity to seek freedom again at a parole hearing scheduled for next month.

Then and now, the degree of mercy afforded Betz by Ohio law should be deemed more than sufficient, considering the heinous nature of his ruthless killing and other crimes committed by Betz before his murder conviction. After all, the pain, anguish and loss felt by the Goche family likely has diminished little over the span of four decades.

We join veteran Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins in urging the Ohio Parole Board to deny release of Betz when he comes before the board in December.

RELEASE RECORDS TO WATKINS

Betz and his supporters are attempting to make a case for his early release via medical reports that purportedly indicate that Betz suffers from an autoimmune disorder that causes skin and joint problems and that causes death for 50 percent of its victims within five years.

That illness served as the focus of Betz’s release in 2007. Oddly enough, Watkins never was allowed to examine that medical evidence to verify its legitimacy. In the name of judicial fairness, the board should relent and release those records to the Trumbull prosecutor this time around to use in Watkins’ case against Betz’s release.

Frankly, however, even if the records do exist and even if they do support the defendant’s claim, Betz already has benefited from two much luck and too much mercy.

If the death prognosis is true, then Betz already has beaten the odds by surviving at least seven years after the supposedly fatal condition was first diagnosed. As a cold blooded murderer, Betz in 2007 beat the odds of life imprisonment by getting a second chance at freedom, a chance he quickly blew. And in his initial sentencing in the late 1970s, he beat the odds by receiving life behind bars – not a date with death in the electric chair – as a punishment for his beastly crime.

As for yet additional mercy, we believe Betz has reached the end of his rope.

Two years ago, members of the parole board did the right thing by rejecting release for the brutal killer. In the name of justice for the family of Robert Goche, they should do likewise next month. We also send the same stern message as Prosecutor Watkins to the decision-makers in Columbus pondering Betz’s future: “Don’t be duped again.”