Clinton Dickens is scheduled to appear before the Ohio parole board on Nov. 17 or Nov. 18, nearly four decades after he and an accomplice kidnapped, raped and killed two young women in Norton, Ohio. The hearing comes under a law that changed when some people sentenced for crimes committed as juveniles can seek parole. Jon Offredo, whose sister Wendy was one of the victims, is urging the board to deny Dickens release and wants state lawmakers to reconsider the law.
Dickens was convicted in the September 1986 murders of 21-year-old Wendy Offredo and her friend, 20-year-old Dawn McCreery, according to NBC4 WCMH-TV. Jon Offredo was 17 years old at the time his sister was murdered, and he has spent decades since watching the case reopen each time Dickens becomes eligible for another hearing.
A Night of Horror on Interstate 77
Prosecutors cited by NBC4 said Dickens, then 17, and Richard Cooey, then 19, threw a piece of concrete off a bridge onto Interstate 77 as Offredo and McCreery drove beneath it. After the women pulled over, the two men offered to help them before kidnapping both, according to the Summit County Prosecutor's Office, which said the pair raped, beat and strangled the women. Prosecutors said Offredo and McCreery endured more than three hours of torture before they were bludgeoned to death.
Cooey was sentenced to death and executed in 2008, per NBC4's report. Dickens was sentenced to life in prison for two murders and two sexual assaults. Jon Offredo said his family remains horrified by the brutality of his sister's death, and that the parole process forces them to relive Wendy's rape and torture every time Dickens comes up for release.
A 2021 Law Reopens the Case
Dickens was originally scheduled to become eligible for parole in 2071, when he would have been 102 years old, according to the Summit County Prosecutor's Office. Ohio Senate Bill 256, enacted in 2021, changed parole eligibility for some people who were under 18 when they committed their offenses. Under the law, they may become eligible after serving 18 to 30 years, depending on their crimes, NBC4 reported. Dickens was 17 at the time of the murders.
The station's report notes the law also banned life sentences without parole for juveniles in Ohio, while carving out an exception for people who murdered three or more victims. Jon Offredo's family learned of Senate Bill 256 only after it was signed into law, the outlet reported, and Offredo now wants the law changed to allow more flexibility in sentencing for juveniles who commit violent crimes.
Dickens already had one parole hearing in 2022, after serving roughly 35 years, and the board denied release. NBC4 WCMH-TV reported that, per the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, the board will schedule Dickens's next hearing within 10 years if it again denies parole. The upcoming Nov. 17 or 18 hearing is part of a two-day series of parole-board proceedings, according to NBC4's reporting.
Eligibility Is Not a Decision to Release
Senate Bill 256 does not change the sentence imposed by the court, but it may allow earlier parole consideration, according to the Office of the Ohio Public Defender. The law’s eligibility schedule and its exception for juveniles who murdered three or more victims are described above; becoming eligible does not itself mean a person will be released. Ohio’s Parole Board handbook says release requires a separate determination that the person is suitable for parole.
Ohio’s administrative rule provides that, for covered offenses, a victim’s sibling may request a full-board hearing through the Office of Victims’ Services. The rule does not establish whether Dickens’s upcoming hearing is a full-board hearing.
A Petition and a Push for Change
Jon Offredo and Wendy Offredo's University of Akron sorority sisters launched a petition opposing parole for Dickens, which had gathered 5,800 signatures as of Wednesday evening, per a report from NBC4 WCMH-TV. Jon Offredo said he hopes the parole board denies Dickens parole again at the upcoming hearing.
Bret Vinocur, president of Block Parole Inc., an Upper Arlington-based nonprofit working to keep violent offenders in prison longer, told NBC4 he was unaware of Senate Bill 256 before it passed and has since worked with victims' families who were similarly caught off guard. Vinocur previously drafted and helped pass Laura's Law in 2005, which established a public online inmate-information database, and Roberta's Law in 2012, which requires notice to victims' families at least 60 days before parole hearings, as reported by NBC4 WCMH-TV.
The Debate Over Youth and Punishment
Supporters of Senate Bill 256 argued that juveniles' brains are still developing, making them ideal candidates for rehabilitation and deserving of a second chance, according to NBC4's reporting. Former Ohio Sen. Peggy Lehner has pointed to a broader trend of moving away from the harshest sentences for youth because of their capacity for effective rehabilitation, the outlet reported. Preston Shipp, senior policy counsel for the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth, testified in 2020 that sentencing youth under 18 to life without parole condemns them to die in prison, according to NBC4 WCMH-TV.
The Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association has criticized what it calls the “T.J. Lane exception,” arguing the three-victim carveout creates an arbitrary standard, as noted by NBC4 WCMH-TV. T.J. Lane killed three students in Chardon, Ohio, in 2012 when he was 17, and earlier juvenile parole reform efforts faced public backlash because they would have made Lane eligible for parole, the station noted. NBC4 said it reached out to criminal justice reform groups that advocated for the measure and received no response.
The scale of the law's reach has been documented since its passage. The Akron Beacon Journal reported in 2021 that Dickens was among 250 people convicted of crimes as juveniles whose parole eligibility changed because of the new law, according to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, with 59 of those cases scheduled for hearings by the end of the following year. That same report noted Dickens's November 2021 hearing was postponed until January 2022.
In a separate case highlighted by NBC4, the family of Margaret Douglas said Gavon Ramsay could have a parole hearing in a little more than 20 years and then every five years after, illustrating how the law's timelines vary case by case. Whether Dickens will be granted or denied parole at this month's hearing remains undetermined, and it is not yet clear which of the two scheduled dates — Nov. 17 or Nov. 18 — applies to his case.
