A man who killed one man and wounded a woman in Mill Creek Canyon in 1977 because he thought they were shooting at him, will spend at least 10 more years in prison.
The Utah Board of Pardons and Parole turned down Douglas Alan Yoakam, 55, for parole Jan. 28 and will schedule a rehearing in January 2016.
Yoakam was suffering a psychotic episode in 1977 when he shot Karen Roberson and Justin Tauffer with a Mac-10 submachine gun, killing Tauffer.
Yoakam believes his paranoia, which caused him to carry weapons with him all the time, caused the entire incident, he said during a Jan. 3 hearing at the Utah State Prison.
Yoakam has apologized for the shooting, and during the parole hearing, Richard Tauffer, Justin Tauffer's son, told Board of Pardons member Jesse Gallegos that he holds no ill will toward Yoakam.
He said he would support whatever the board decided to do about Yoakam.
That made Gallegos' job more difficult.
Gallegos was responsible for making a recommendation to the other board members, and he called Richard Tauffer's statement a noble position.
When he came into the hearing, Gallegos said, he had an idea of what his recommendation was going to be. But even days after the hearing, he still hadn't decided which way to go — recommend a parole date or more time in prison.
According to the board's rationale, the aggravating factors of the events of that day in May 1977 outweigh the mitigating factors since then.
The board lists the submachine gun, extreme cruelty and multiple victims, as well as Yoakam's lack of a support system and stable release plans.
But he's been a good inmate and has accepted responsibility for the shootings, which the board considers good things.
"You seem like an OK person, but . . . you suffer from a mental illness," Gallegos said during the hearing. "And sadly, that mental illness was so severe that you tragically took an innocent person's life."
By the time Yoakam is eligible for parole again, he will have served 37 years of a possible life sentence for the slaying.
E-mail: jdougherty@desnews.com