Man up for parole in Christmas '84 killing
Authorities and the relatives of a Sedgwick County man who was killed on Christmas 1984 are opposing the release of an inmate convicted of the murder.
Martin Priest, 53, is being considered for parole after having spent nearly half of his life in prison for first-degree murder of 25-year-old William Mayhugh.
Mayhugh's relatives have given parole officials a petition with about 500 signatures opposing parole for Priest.
Mayhugh's mother, Connie Capistrant, said that she told the Parole Board in a recent public comment session "the heartache it caused the family" when her son was killed.
Years after the murder, she said, she would see someone who walked like her son or had similar hair.
"It's like your brain knows he's not there, but ...
"I also have a granddaughter who grew up without her dad, and that's been fairly traumatic for her."
It is the fifth time Priest has been considered for parole since he was convicted in 1985 and sent to prison in early 1986.
The Sedgwick County District Attorney's Office and a former Sedgwick County sheriff's investigator, Danny Bardezbain, have urged parole officials not to allow Priest to be released.
Bardezbain — a retired sheriff's major and now the Eastborough police chief — said he told parole officials that Priest would be a threat to public safety.
According to The Eagle's coverage of Priest's trial, Mayhugh died of exposure after being shot in the head with a .32-caliber pistol. Priest also was charged with killing Mayhugh's girlfriend, Freida Bayliff, 33.
She was found lying face down on a broken water bed in her home on Dec. 28, 1984, the day after Mayhugh's body was found in the Big Ditch about a mile from her home.
The prosecutor implied that robbery was the motive, according to an Eagle article.
The jury found Priest not guilty of killing Bayliff.
One of the jurors told the newspaper that the jury was convinced that Priest owned the gun used to kill Mayhugh but was uncertain about who killed Bayliff.
At his sentencing, Priest told the judge:''I can only say what I've said all along: I haven't killed nobody."
Mayhugh wasn't the only person Priest has been accused of killing. In 1987, a Sedgwick County jury found Priest not guilty of murdering 15-year-old Katrina Cheely.
Priest spent three years in prison for the 1980 murder of a Missouri teenager, until that conviction was overturned.
Kansas prison records show that Priest is being held at Lansing Correctional Facility under a "low medium" custody level.
He was scheduled to go before the Prisoner Review Board in early July.
If the board rules in his favor, his earliest possible release would be Aug. 1.
This story was originally published July 5, 2011 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Man up for parole in Christmas '84 killing."