He helped kill a pregnant girl 12 years ago. Now he wants to be pardoned.

The family of Chelsea Brooks – a pregnant Wichita middle-schooler murdered in 2006 – says one of the men responsible for the girl’s killing has applied for clemency.

Andrea Fremouw, Chelsea’s older sister, and Terri Brooks, Chelsea’s mother, said they were told Thursday that 29-year-old Everett Gentry has asked for a pardon by the governor. Notice of Gentry’s application for clemency came by letter from the Kansas Department of Corrections Office of Victim Services, the women said.

At least one of Chelsea’s family members and a friend already received a letter, they said. They’re expecting to receive them soon, too.

Clemency is an appeal where an inmate can ask to be released or have a sentence changed. It requires approval by the governor.

Gentry is serving a 25-year-to-life prison sentence for capital murder for helping to orchestrate Chelsea’s killing so her baby’s father wouldn’t be prosecuted for raping her. She was 14, and nine months pregnant with a daughter she called Alexa.

Their deaths led Kansas legislators to pass Alexa’s Law, which allows prosecutors to bring double charges against a person who attacks a pregnant woman and harms or kills her unborn child.

“I think that he (Gentry) got the sentence that he deserved, and I will continue until the day I die to make sure that he stays in prison – because that’s the punishment for what he did,” Terri Brooks said Friday by phone. “He could have stopped the entire thing but chose not to. He wants mercy but he never gave that to Chelsea.”

“We are totally, 100 percent, opposed to him being granted clemency,” Brooks said.

Gentry was 17 when he picked up Chelsea from a south Wichita skating rink on June 9, 2006, under the pretense of taking her to see Elgin Ray Robinson Jr., the father of her unborn child. But instead, Gentry drove her and another man, Ted Burnett, to a remote spot near Andover where her body would later be found in a shallow grave.

On the way, Gentry reached into the back seat and tapped Burnett to signal him that it was time to kill Chelsea. Gentry turned up the radio as Burnett choked her from behind.

Robinson, according to court testimony, arranged the murder to avoid being charged with raping Chelsea and had offered to pay $1,000 for her death. Like Gentry, he and Burnett are also serving life prison sentences, but they aren’t eligible for parole.

“He (Gentry) never apologized for what he did,” Fremouw said. “He wrote it off as being a kid” who was going along with a friend’s plan.

The KDOC letter says Gentry applied for clemency but it does not give a date of when that happened. It also does not say why Gentry thinks he should be granted a pardon.

KDOC spokesman Samir Arif on Friday did not immediately return a request for information on Gentry’s application. KDOC’s Office of Victim Services did not immediately return a phone message left late Friday afternoon requesting additional information.

Brant Laue, Gov. Sam Brownback’s chief counsel, said the governor’s office had not received a clemency application from Gentry as of Friday.

Laue said the application process starts with the Kansas Prisoner Review Board, which is also responsible for the review of parole bids from inmates.

The board receives all of the information necessary for clemency, prepares a packet and makes a recommendation to the governor, who then grants or denies the request. Brownback has pardoned only one inmate since becoming governor — a Colorado man convicted of insurance fraud in 1994. That happened in October.

Fremouw said she and her mother are asking people to write letters and emails to the Kansas Department of Corrections opposing Gentry’s request.

She said they’ve been told it’s unlikely Gentry will be pardoned — “but I just want to make sure.”

“I think that the more (letters) that they have, the better shot that we have that he’ll be denied,” Fremouw said.

“I just want to make sure that he knows that there are still people who oppose him any time he tries something like this,” she said. “And while Chelsea may not be alive, her memory is still very, very strong.”

This story was originally published January 19, 2018 at 7:42 PM with the headline "He helped kill a pregnant girl 12 years ago. Now he wants to be pardoned.."