Family fighting to keep convicted murderer in prison

A parole hearing was scheduled Wednesday (June 18) for the man convicted of the 1988 rape and murder of a 94-year-old Clinton woman, but family members of the victim say they want Calvin Eugene Gary to remain behind bars.

“I made myself a promise when he started to come up for parole that as long as there is breath in my body, I would do everything possible that’s legal to keep him in prison,” said Anne Donehoo.

Donehoo is the great niece of Jessie Dare Roberts, who was attacked, beaten and raped by Gary, who was 21 at the time of his arrest.

Roberts succumbed to injuries she suffered a day after the attack at Clinton’s Bailey Memorial Hospital. She was discovered by her niece, Eloise McElveen, in the home the two shared when she returned home from work at Presbyterian College.

Donehoo said she has made the trip to Columbia for hearings twice before, but planned call into the parole board from her home in northeastern Georgia due to health reasons.

Laurens County Coroner Patti Canupp will speak at the parole hearing, and Donehoo enlisted 8th Circuit Solicitor David Stumbo to write a letter on behalf of the victim’s family.

“This is just a horrendous crime,” Canupp said. “I feel like this needs to be done – I need to speak. We speak for the decedents. That’s what we’re here for.”

According to reports, Roberts knew Gary, who lived on Musgrove Street, mowed the grass at her residence and others in the downtown area.

Gary, 59, is currently incarcerated at Broad River Correctional Institute in Columbia. He is serving two life sentences for murder and first-degree burglary. He was also sentenced to 30 years for criminal sexual conduct and a year for resisting an officer.

Since his incarceration in 1989, Gary has no escape attempts or documented disciplinary actions against him, according to South Carolina Department of Corrections records.

Donehoo said Gary has done nothing to rehabilitate himself.

SCDOC records indicate he has no earned education credits or certificates. He has held several jobs within the SCDOC system.

Donehoo said her great aunt was a “pillar in our family.”

“She was loved by so many people,” Donehoo said. “It just makes my stomach churn that (Gary) could be let out of prison. . . . I don’t see how anybody in their right mind would release him.”