Parole for Man who Brutally Murdered Somers Woman

Terry Losicco, who brutally murdered Somers resident Eleanor Prouty in 1980, has been granted parole, Tap Into Somers reports.

He had been serving time for the killing of the long-time Somers resident, a retired senior editor for the Readers Digest and a civic leader, and the near-fatal beating of her husband, Norman, who was wheelchair-bound due to multiple sclerosis.

Brooks Prouty, her grandson, told Tap into Somers that the family was given very little notice by the state Parole Board. Apparently Losicco appealed the decision from his last parole hearing in March 2015 and was given another hearing last Friday.

In 1980 Losicco, 16, was about to be released from Lincoln Hall, a residential center in Somers to which boys are sent by the courts. As an act of charity, Ellie and Norman Prouty had for years hired Lincoln Hall kids to do light chores around the house.

Losicco heard about the Proutys from one of those boys, and taking along a 15-year-old acquaintance, David Hollis, set out to rob them so he would have money to finance a new career as a drug dealer, according to “Murder Story: A Tragedy of Our Time” by Lester Velie. He had armed himself with a piece of firewood. He strangled and sodomized Ellie Prouty and severely beat Norman Prouty.

Rumors spread through Lincoln Hall about the killing and police investigating the crime arrested Losicco and Hollis.

Losicco was sentenced to 27-99 years in prison. In 2013, he applied for parole for the sixth time and was denied.

Prouty’s grandson wrote in 2013:

Finally, one of the most interesting things to come out of the collective effort to keep Losicco behind bars is the general acknowledgement among residents of Somers that Lincoln Hall remains a menace to the community. Terry Losicco was able to rape and murder because Lincoln Hall housed such a dangerous individual. No one then had any knowledge of him or his ilk because Lincoln Hall concealed such information. Lincoln Hall bears complicity for the rape and murder of Ellie and the severe beating of my grandfather, Norman, because it failed to alert the town to the threat and to protect the community from the violent elements of its population. The same lack of transparency and latent risk exists today, exposing other families nearby to the same dangers that sadly befell the Prouty family. I am working closely now with Scott Saks and a growing number of other residents of Somers in raising the question of Lincoln Hall. I encourage others in Somers to join our cause.

RELATED:

Parole Denied for Eleanor Prouty’s Murderer

PHOTO: Terry Losicco at 16.