COVINGTON, Ky. – A convicted murderer and rapist could have the chance to be released from prison. However, Debbie Pooley's friends and family members have said that cannot happen. 

Gregory Wilson will have a parole hearing 36 years after being found guilty of killing Pooley.

In the 1980s, Pooley moved from Florida to Northern Kentucky to be closer to her parents, who lived in Hamilton, Ohio. She left behind her two nieces, Ami and Keri, who she had lived with for years. The two sisters wanted their last names to remain anonymous for this story.

“She was the most fun and fun loving aunt to both my sister and I,” Ami said. “She was like a second mom, but a fun mom.”

Keri said her aunt was fun but also had an edge.

“She was feisty; I remember her having kind of a sarcastic sense of humor,” Keri said. 

When she was 28, Pooley started working at the Barleycorn’s Yacht Club in Newport. She eventually became assistant manager. Her former general manager, Joe Heil, still lives in Northern Kentucky.

“[Pooley had a] very bubbly personality,” Heil said. “[She] would walk in the door with a smile on her face, early all the time, and make it her point to make people smile when they came in there.”

While the Yacht Club location no longer exists, there are now several other Barleycorn’s restaurants in the area. Heil and his brother started the business in 1975 and sold it two years ago.

One night when then-30-year-old Pooley left work in 1987 to go shopping with a friend, Heil said she returned to her apartment in Covington and parked her car. 

“Gregory Wilson and Brenda Humphrey were walking ... specifically looking for someone to rob,” Heil said. “As it turns out, they abduct her [and] take her in her car.”

“While Brenda was driving, Gregory Wilson raped her in the back seat and strangled her with the very cord of the lamp that she had gone out and bought that evening and then dumped her body up in Indiana somewhere, in a patch. It laid there for two weeks before a farmer discovered it.” 

Wilson had been on parole for fewer than 30 days in Ohio for a rape charge.

In the time it took to find her body, Pooley’s family clung to the hope that maybe she had just ran away somewhere and would soon return.

“Day after day, when that didn’t happen, the fear just started to creep in,” Keri said. “It was just a physical reaction to find out she had passed away, and that someone had done that to her. It was just a horrifying experience.” 

Ami, who was just 12 years old, said she came to understand more of the gruesome details of her aunt’s murder in the following years.

“It’s just harder every time you hear the torture that she went through,” she said.

After a two-week trial in 1988, Wilson was found guilty of raping and murdering Pooley. He was sentenced to death.

“There was a sense of justice,” Heil said. “Although I knew it would be a long road. I didn’t ever think that it would be this long of a road.” 

When former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, R, was voted out of office in 2019, he issued several pardons and sentence commutations.

“What then-Gov. Bevin did was change [Wilson’s] sentence from a death sentence to a life sentence,” said Kenton County Commonwealth’s Attorney Rob Sanders. “But what’s important to note is that in Kentucky, life without the connotation of life without parole means that defendants are eligible for parole after serving 20 years.” 

Sanders has been in office for 18 years. He was in grade school when Wilson was found guilty. Wilson’s case had been appealed through both state and federal courts over the years, but the convictions were always upheld.

“The only thing [Bevin] cited in his commutation was what he called ‘poor prosecution and defense’ in Mr. Wilson’s case at the time it was tried,” Sanders said. “[His public defenders] sacrificed Mr. Wilson. They tried to make his case into some sort of rallying cry for how poorly funded the public defender system was in Kentucky at the time. And to an extent, they succeeded, but most definitely to the detriment of Mr. Wilson.”

Sanders added, “Now, that said, Mr. Wilson was guilty as sin. I don’t think there’s anything the best attorneys in the world could’ve done to save him from being convicted. He’s right where he needs to be. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the police investigation or the prosecution of the case.”

Sanders said he was notified by the parole board that Wilson is being considered for release in February. 

“Why even give him the possibility of parole?” Keri said. “We were shocked when we found that out. We don’t understand.”

She, her sister, Heil and Sanders will all get a chance to address the parole board virtually Jan. 22. Wilson will have his own chance the following day.

“I think Matt Bevin was simply throwing a temper tantrum on his way out the door because he was unhappy about not being re-elected,” Sanders said. “In an effort to basically give the middle finger to all the voters in Kentucky ... he starts commuting the sentence or pardoning all sorts of defendants: killers, robbers, rapists, child molesters, you name it.”

Sanders continued saying, “The fact that [Wilson] received, at least what some people have claimed to be, less than adequate representation, didn’t change the fact that he was guilty, did not change the fact that he raped and murdered Deborah Pooley, did not change the fact that he’s convicted of over a dozen rapes of Ohio and is suspected of even more murders throughout the Tri-State area.” 

Sanders also said he thinks the parole hearing is a waste of state resources.

“Instead of working on all the open homicide cases I have to deal with right now that have occurred in the last year or two that are still pending in Kenton County, I’m dealing with one from 1987: one that should’ve been done and over with a long time ago,” he said.

Along with wanting justice for Pooley, Heil said he wants to prevent others from being harmed.

“I’m very concerned and terrified right now that he would be freed and the citizens of the commonwealth of Kentucky are going to pay for it,” he said. “We’ve been robbed of justice when Gov. Bevin did that.”

Keri and Ami said their grandparents, Pooley’s parents, attended every day of Wilson’s trial. They’ve since died.

“Part of me was glad that my grandparents are no longer living to experience this,” Keri said. “I just don’t know how they would’ve been able to handle it all this time later.”

“They let him out one time before. And when that happened, he killed my aunt, so let’s not do that again. Let’s not make the same mistake. Finalize this by not giving him another chance at parole. Let us have peace; let Debbie have peace.”

The two sisters started a petition and have encouraged people to email the parole board. While they thought they had justice for their aunt long ago, they said it’s their responsibility to be her voice.