The perpetrator of a terrible child murder over 30 years ago may be eligible for early release from jail when he appears before a parole board this month.
According to Muskingum County Prosecutor Ron Welch’s news release, on a February night in 1993, Billy J. Shafer offered to babysit Sara West. After killing the 5-year-old girl, Shafer admitted to detectives that he shot her in the skull and sliced her body into pieces.
The alarming revelations included Shafer telling detectives that killing another person had been his lifetime dream, and West became his victim because “opportunity was knocking.”
The prosecutor’s office stated that Shafer faced a juvenile trial due to his teenage status at the time of the offense. The court sentenced him to 20 years to life in prison, with an additional three years for a firearms specification.
Currently, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction Parole Board is considering the 47-year-old’s sentence. “Community opposition to a murderer’s release,” Welch stated, is one factor the Board must consider before releasing Shafer. In response, Welch’s office has launched a public petition, which anybody can sign, to keep Shafer in prison.
“Keeping this child murderer behind bars is the only way Sara will continue to receive justice,” said Welch, the prosecutor. “His release would be a slap in the face to Sara, her family, our community, and to justice.”
The petition is available online and will be delivered to the parole board before its vote on October 15 or 16. The parole board voted to deny Shafer’s release five years ago, in 2019.
