Murderer may get paroled early after Ore. Supreme Court ruling

PORTLAND, Ore. – A Southeast Portland family will learn Tuesday whether the man convicted of brutally murdering their loved one could be paroled years early.

Kevin Roper killed Eddie Gibbs in the late 1980s and was sentenced to 30 years to life.

He is the first in a wave of 30 killers who could get paroled early after the Oregon Supreme Court recently ruled that a group of killers sentenced in the 80s and 90s should be eligible for parole hearings after 20 years.

"There was an ambiguity in the law. It could be interpreted one or another way, and the Supreme Court has said this is the way it should be interpreted," said Tung Yin a professor at Lewis and Clark Law School.

The court's ruling clears the way for killers to possibly get out of prison up to 10 years earlier than families of their victims thought.

In March 1987, Gibbs' body was found at the Powell drive-in movie theater. He was lashed to a speaker stand with the cord wrapped around his neck.

Gibbs had been robbed and beaten with an ax handle by two friends, one of whom was Roper. Then they went to get a bite to eat at a McDonald's.

"They acted like they were celebrating something at the McDonald's when they were eating," said Gibbs' mother Patricia Hanley. "They were really all fired up and happy."

She said they then went back to stab her son some more.

Even though Roper has only served 24 years, he'll be the first to try to convince the parole board he's no longer a danger to society.

"I have faith it's going to lean the right way," said Gibbs' brother Rod Toth. "But I thought they were going to be in jail at least 30 years also. It's tough."

If the parole board decides to grant Roper his freedom, he would be released in March.

Over the next weeks and months the rest of the initial wave of 30 will have their hearings. All of them have been convicted of aggravated murders.