The North Carolina parole commission is currently deciding if Russell Hinson, a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan who shot a 16-year-old girl with a crossbow in 1992, should be released before the end of his life sentence.
On Dec. 28, 1992, Hinson told his friends he wanted to get revenge after a drug deal fell through earlier in the month and he lost $70. Hinson, who had been the leader of the KKK in Union County in the late ’80s, showed his friend Richard McCoy a crossbow and said he planned to send the black community a message.
A friend drove Hinson with his crossbow to the Burke Street Apartments, located near Creft Park in northwest Monroe. Then he shot the crossbow at two boys and missed. The men circled the block while Hinson reloaded, then Hinson show another arrow and killed Patricia Hope Houston, 16.
Hinson, who is now 56, was convicted of the killing a year later after a trial that lasted six days.
Now, Union County District Attorney Trey Robinson has said he is planning to write a letter in opposition of Hinson’s release. Robinson said he was sent a letter earlier in the month asking for his opinion about Hinson being under review by the parole commission. Robinson has spoken with the family of Houston, he said.
Robinson said the murder was pitiless, cruel, and gruesome, and Hinson doesn’t deserve to be freed.
