McIntosh, 44, was convicted in 1987 of killing Morrow police officer Jeffrey Phegley, during a routine traffic stop. Sheriff’s deputies and friends and family members collected more than 12,000 signatures on a petition in December, that asked the parole authority to keep McIntosh behind bars. He has been serving a 15 years to life sentence at the Madison Correctional Institution in London.
The parole decision comes on the 23rd anniversary of the murder. This was McIntosh’s third hearing. Phegley was 22 when McIntosh gunned him down with a sawed off shotgun.
On Dec. 14, Warren County Sheriff Larry Sims, as well as Chief Assistant Prosecutor Bruce McGary and nearly a dozen other people, went to Columbus to participate in a victim’s conference with members of the state parole board to express their opposition to a possible parole of McIntosh.
"We respectfully appreciate that the parole board saw the egregious crime that Mr. McIntosh committed. This office will fight to keep him behind bars for the rest of his life," Sims said.
The parole board’s report said McIntosh has been a model prisoner, but “the severity of the crime warrants more prison time.”
“Offender claims self defense and still holds on to this claim. Offender has exceptional institutional conduct and programs, however the crime is so egregious, the senseless taking of a life, that offender should serve additional time for the crime,” the report reads.
Contact this reporter at (513) 696-4525 or dcallahan@coxohio.com.
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