We gave him that opportunity. This may be the inmate's hearing, but this is our loss.
While we sat in the room, my mother felt ill. She was taken out and shortly later brought back. This was just too overwhelming for her.
Some time before the hearing, I had met with two of David Dobson's sisters. One of them told me that during a visit with him, David Dobson told her that upon his release he wanted to visit with Terri Prioriello and that it wouldn't be nice.
If you check our website, www.nofreedomdobson.com, you'll see his letter, “Catch me if you can”, in which he promises to kill again every year possible on the anniversary of my sister's death. Keep in mind that he didn't know her and had never seen her until the day he killed her. But it's their anniversary.
If you put those two things together, his promise to kill again and his threat to me through his sister, it's no wonder that when I sat in that room, no matter how many guards were there I couldn't help but feel that I still wasn't safe. Yet in our statement I wasn't allowed to tell the parole board about this, because it wasn't my hearing and what I had to say was not allowed to be used to influence the board's decision concerning his parole or lack thereof.
I believe that a serious offender should earn the right to a hearing. Our family asks that the Corrections and Conditional Release Act include an amendment that gives parolees an earned right to a hearing every five years, rather than the current two years, without grandfathering. Make the amendment retroactive for all offenders. I see the system, the same system that is meant to protect us, as a flawed system.
I know that serious offenders are given the option of courses to help them reintegrate into society. I believe that these courses should be mandatory, not optional. I also believe that the list of courses to reintegrate into society should be lengthened, with more courses—