Man, 78, granted parole after 1978 execution-style killing of Kansas trooper

A 78-year-old man imprisoned for 46 years in the 1978 execution-style killing of a Kansas trooper has been granted parole.

The Kansas Prisoner Review Board granted Jimmie K. Nelms parole several weeks after his March 6 hearing. It was his ninth hearing before the board after the May 24, 1978, killing of trooper Conroy G. O’Brien.

The board “believes that Mr. Nelms is able and willing to fulfill the obligations of a law-abiding citizen and is of the opinion that there is reasonable probability that Mr. Nelms can be released without detriment to the community or to himself,” Kansas Department of Corrections spokesperson David Thompson said in an email Friday.

The Kansas State Trooper’s Association condemned the decision to release Nelms.

O’Brien was “adored by his community for being a kindhearted young guy who became a cop for all the right reasons,” the association said in a news release.

O’Brien stopped a speeding driver early in the morning near Matfield Green, about 44 miles east of Wichita, on the Kansas Turnpike. He didn’t know at the time that the three occupants were wanted for string of armed robberies across multiple states, the association said.

They forced O’Brien away from his patrol vehicle and into the ditch.

“Nelms disarmed (O’Brien) and fractured his skull as he begged for his life,” the association said. “Nelms executed Conroy by shooting him twice in the side of the head with his own service weapon.”

The suspects got into a shootout with officers later that day before being arrested.

“It does not go unnoticed when life sentences in Kansas aren’t worth the paper they’re written on, even for cop killers when there is no question of guilt,” the association said. “To the Prison Review Board ... : Please understand we will never forget your disgraceful and disgusting actions. We hope you feel profound shame from this day forward whenever you see a young Kansas State Trooper on the side of the road protecting our community.“

Nelms was convicted in 1978 of first-degree murder and aggravated kidnapping. He was convicted in 1979 of unlawful possession of a firearm.

O’Brien had grown up in Abbyville, about 20 miles southwest of Hutchinson. He played football and basketball at Fairfield High School and Sterling College before attending Wichita State University.

He was married, and his wife was pregnant when he died.

In a 2011 hearing, his daughter, Neely Goen, told the review board that she had forgiven Nelms and did not urge the board either way. She said she had communicated with her father’s killer, who was studying “the word of God, and he prays.” Nelms had also made earrings for Goen.

“I will make a public statement at some point in the future, but for now we are going to sit with it,” Goen said on Thursday on social media about Nelms getting parole.

Her mother, Tanda O’Brien Ulm, who had remarried, said in 2011 she wanted Nelms to stay in prison.

“I died that day, too,” she told the board in 2011. “I’ve never been the same.”

Nelms was 31 at the time of the crime. Co-defendendant Walter Myrick was 25. Myrick, who was also convicted of murdering O’Brien, died in prison in 2009. A third defendant, Stanford Swain, who was 21 at the time, was released from prison in 1983 after pleading to lesser charges and testifying for the prosecution.