*One of the men who was convicted of killing Michael Jordan‘s father over 20 years ago has been granted parole.
Larry Demery is set to be released from prison on Aug. 6, 2023—more than 30 years after his involvement in the slaying of James Raymond Jordan, according to WSOCTV. He was denied parole in two previous hearings.
In 1996, Demery was convicted of the first-degree murder of Jordan. An earlier report on EURweb noted that in July of 1993, Jordan had been sleeping in his Lexus at a rest stop off Highway 74 in Robeson County when Demery and another man, Daniel Green, approached the car and fatally shot him. His body was dumped off a bridge in South Carolina, and was discovered with a bullet wound in the chest 11 days later, per Complex.
Demery and Green were 18 and 17, respectively, at the time they were convicted of the murder.
Green reportedly won’t be eligible for parole until October 2021.
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Michael Jordan announced he was retiring from the NBA about two months are his father’s death.
“It made me realize how short life is, how quickly things can end, how innocently,” Jordan said during a ’93 press conference, the New York Times reported “And I thought that there are times in one’s life when you have to put games aside. I wanted to give more time to my family. I’ve been very selfish about centering things on my basketball career. Now it’s time to be unselfish with them.”
In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, when she asked if he wanted to know the reason Larry and Daniel targeted his father, Jordan said: “I’m a very optimistic person in the sense that I don’t look at the real bad part of it. I looked at it that no matter what happened to my father, he’s not here…I don’t want to know. Because it probably would hurt me even more just to know their reasons. Because if it is, it’s going to be totally meaningless for the reasons…It’s better that I don’t know.”
We previously reported… North Carolina’s current sentencing law, referred to as structured sentencing, eliminates parole for crimes committed after October 1, 1994. Because Demery was sentenced under previous guidelines, he was eligible for parole consideration.
The sentencing law is covered by the state’s Mutual Agreement Parole Program (MAPP). Here is what the North Carolina Department of Public Safety says is the function of the program: “The MAPP is designed to prepare selected inmates for release through structured activities, scheduled progression in custody levels, participation in community based programs and established parole dates.”
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