Killer Loses Parole Bid

A man sent back to prison by Gov. Jerry Brown after a state board granted him parole will spend another three years behind bars.

Andrew Otton Jr., 49, does not dispute that he arranged to sell a man marijuana then shot him to death and stole his $12,000 as the man sat waiting in his pickup truck. Otton was sentenced to 25 years to life for the crime.

He has been incarcerated since 1984. This was his sixth parole hearing.

At his last hearing in 2010, the Board of Parole Hearings panel was struck by Otton’s “lack of insight into the crime and lack of real remorse, and felt he was not honest in discussing the crime," according to case notes.

He also failed to own up to his involvement in a 2000 prison riot, the members said.

While they considered him a bad risk, they said sentencing laws forced them to parole him anyway.

At the start of the year, Brown reviewed the parole grant and reversed it, returning Otton to at Deuel Vocational Institute in Tracy for another three years.