Mother says poor supervision of parolee led to son's murder

DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — The mother of a murder victim says she believes the state's lapse in supervision of a parolee may have led to her son's murder.

Channel 2 Action News broke the news Monday of a parole officer's mistake that allowed Andre Gay to go largely unsupervised for months.

"How they could, you know, not see that?” Kawana Brown told Channel 2’s Kerry Kavanaugh.

In August, Brown's son, Jeronta, and his pregnant fiancée, Brianna Brooks, were kidnapped, held for ransom, then shot in an execution-style killing.

This month, a grand jury indicted Richard Wilson and Andre Gay for their murders. Gay was just paroled in January.

"The board expects the case to be supervised in the manner they prescribe. And, in this case, that didn't happen,” said Michael Nail, executive director the Pardons and Parole

In an exclusive interview Monday, Nail said Gay was supposed to receive the highest level of supervision.

"It was a case where someone didn't do their job,” said Nail.

Nail said the parole board wanted Gay monitored through a phone voice recognition system.

But, Nail said, the parole officer never activated Gay on the system, so it never made a single call to check on Gay's whereabouts.

"I was like ‘wow.’ Really, it was terrifying,” Brown said. "I have two people that are gone. Really gone.”

Gay served 22 years for killing two people in 1990: a woman, Cathy Dozier, and a 16-month-old boy, Michael.

"We have forgiven him. We have moved forward,” Harmon said.

Harmon said her pain has healed. She was accepting of Gay's parole and hoped he would have turned his life around.

"God gave him a second chance and when God gives you a second chance, it's up to you to make your life worthy," Harmon said.

"I just hope something will be done about this. I really do,” said Brown.

The parole board is continuing to investigate the actions of the parole officer. They expect to wrap up the investigation this week.

WSBTV