1 Denied Parole in 16-year-old's Slaying

“Great News !” John Murphy wrote on his Facebook page. ”Richard LaBarbera, one of the killers of 16 year old Paula Bohovesky of Pearl River was denied parole. Thank all of you who petitioned the NYS Parole Board. One down, one to go, Robert McCain comes up for parole the first or second week in June. Keep signing those petitions. www.PetitionForPaula.Org”

Bohovesky was walking home from her part-time job at the Pearl River Public Library on Oct. 28, 1980, when she was attacked by LaBarbera and McCain just three blocks from home.

She was beaten, sexually assaulted and stabbed repeatedly.

They were tried and convicted of her murder and received the maximum sentence of 25 years to life. Now, they are each eligible for parole hearings every two years.

Murphy’s daughter, Jennifer, was a classmate of Bohovesky’s, so the issue of keeping McCain and LaBarbera in prison has hit close to home for him from the beginning.

“It’s all about the parole hearings,” said Murphy, a Rockland County legislator. “Every two years now, her killers come up for parole. It’s up to the community, every facet of the communty to tell the New York State Parole Board we don’t want them let loose. Every two years we have to do this, to build another outcry.”

Petition for Paula is a web site dedicated to gathering petitions to send to the Parole Board and keeping Bohovesky’s memory alive.

“With the passage of time, the memory of what was Rockland’s most heinous crime dims,” Murphy told Pearl River Patch in 2011. “People grow old and die. People move away. We’re determined to keep her memory alive and to keep these guys in jail until they die.”

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