Joel Ferkins, who brutally murdered 15-year-old Michele 'Sheli' Nabin Wilkinson at her Wurtsboro home on April 22, 1982 is eligible for parole on April 26, 2023 and has an interview with the New York State Parole Board in December, according to public records.
The SullivanTimes on Monday morning reached out to the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision to ask about the exact date of the parole board interview.
For anyone who wants to support or oppose Ferkins' parole in advance of his interview, there's a direct link to the parole board here.
Ferkins, now 73, has been incarcerated since June 1983 at the Collins Correctional Facility (Collins NY), which is about 40 miles south of Buffalo.
He was sentenced to an aggregated minimum sentence of 41 years and a an aggregated maximum sentence of 99 years after his conviction on four felony counts, including second degree murder and sodomy in a case prosecuted by then-District Attorney Steve Lungen.
More than 400 mourners attended Wilkinson's funeral at the time, according to reports in the Times Herald-Record. She is buried at the Sylvan Cemetery in Wurtsboro.
Ferkins later appealed his conviction but the Appellate Division, Third Department upheld it in a decision issued on January 2, 1986,
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