By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — One of the killers of an Abbyville native who died in the line of duty as a state trooper on the Kansas Turnpike is up for parole and that trooper's brother is back in Reno County to ensure Jimmie Nelms stays behind bars.
"This is my fourth parole hearing," said Kelvin O'Brien, brother of Trooper Conroy O'Brien. "They about wear you out each time they come up. The last time this killer was up for parole was 10 years ago. Anyway, you go back and you live through everything again, because you have to make a presentation to the parole board."
According to his brother, the way Trooper O'Brien was murdered was premeditated, malicious and deliberate.
"My brother pulled them over," Kelvin O'Brien said. "One of them was an escaped convict. The one that's up for parole now was actually on parole at the time he killed my brother out of Oklahoma. Instead of just shooting him and going on down the Turnpike, they marched him out into the ditch, they taunted him, they pistolwhipped him to where his skull was fractured and then they shot him twice in the head."
O'Brien is asking for the public's help in letting the parole board know they don't want Nelms in the public.
"A big part of the parole, whether they let someone out of prison or not, is the response from the public," O'Brien said. "Ten years ago, the reason they passed him for ten more years in prison was because of the overwhelming response from the public."
The Zoom parole hearing is Wednesday from 2 to 4 p.m. There will be a place to testify in Abbyville.
"It's at the Abbyville Community Center, it used to be the old grade school," said O'Brien. "We're actually putting up a 42 inch flat screen so people, whoever's not talking on Zoom to the parole board, there will be another area where they can migrate over to and they can just watch the parole hearing and not interfere with whoever is talking."
Any received online letter is sent to the victim services in Topeka and immediately printed and forwarded to the parole board. There is also a physical address as well.
All letters have to be received by March 31 or they will not count.
Office of Victim Services
714 SW Jackson Suite 300
Topeka, KS 66603