More than five decades after Cincinnati police officer David Cole was gunned down, his widow is once again pleading with the public to help keep his killer behind bars. Cheryl Cole Candelaresi has fought for more than 50 years to keep Roland Reaves in prison, and with his parole hearing set for January 2027, she says she needs the community's help one more time.
Cole was killed in the line of duty in Cincinnati in 1974, according to FOX19, which reported that his widow spoke out again this week against the possible release of the man convicted in his death. The Hamilton County Prosecuting Attorney's Office has made its position plain, stating on its website that it “strongly opposes any type of parole or release of Roland Reaves for the rest of his natural life,” according to the Hamilton County Prosecuting Attorney's Office.
According to the prosecutor's account, Reaves and an accomplice, Ricardo Woods, had planned to rob a loan company on July 16, 1974, before later ending up at a United Dairy Farmers store that once sat on Florence Avenue. Per WKRC, an unidentified person called police after spotting the two men, and Cole pulled up to the scene and called them over.
A Killing That Took Two Gunmen
What happened next has been described in painstaking detail by multiple accounts. WKRC reports that Reaves used Woods as a shield and then shot Cole himself, and that the pair returned to the scene and shot the officer again before fleeing. The Greater Cincinnati Police Museum offers its own account of that second round of gunfire, stating that with Reaves watching, Woods shot Patrolman Cole again “with two .22 copper-jacketed hollow point bullets,” according to the Greater Cincinnati Police Museum.
The prosecutor's office says Cole died after being rushed to the hospital, with his cause of death listed as multiple gunshot wounds to the body. WKRC reports that Reaves and Woods were ultimately caught after Reaves bragged about killing a police officer. Both men were convicted and sentenced to death.
From Death Row to Life, and Back to Parole Reviews
Those death sentences didn't stand. Reaves's and Woods's sentences were commuted to life imprisonment after Ohio's death penalty law was declared unconstitutional in the 1970s, according to The Cincinnati Enquirer. That shift opened the door to periodic parole reviews that have defined much of Cheryl Cole Candelaresi's adult life.
Woods was paroled in 1994, and the newspaper's reporting says neither the prosecutor's office nor Cole's family were notified about that hearing beforehand. The fallout from that notification failure reshaped state law — Woods's release led to a change in Ohio law that now requires law enforcement and victims' families to be notified of upcoming parole hearings, the same account notes.
Reaves has not had the same luck as his former accomplice. The Ohio Parole Board denied him parole in 2017, a hearing the Enquirer's earlier reporting described as his fourth since conviction. At the time, Fraternal Order of Police Sgt. Dan Hils said Reaves would have to wait 10 more years for another parole hearing — a timeline that lines up with the January 2027 date now on the calendar.
Prosecutor and Police Union Rally Public Opposition
Hamilton County Prosecutor Connie Pillich spoke out this week about why she believes Reaves should never be freed, according to WKRC, saying he committed a heinous crime, harmed many people, should not be free, and may kill again. Reaves's case is listed on the prosecutor's office parole watch page, a tool the office uses to rally public comment ahead of hearings.
Ken Kober, president of Queen City Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 69, has also weighed in, per WKRC. Kober said Reaves gets another chance at freedom every few years, which means Cheryl has had to fight again every time for the past 52 years. He added that Reaves has lived the 52 years David Cole never got, and has received more mercy than he showed David.
Kober pointed to a 2017 outpouring of support as a model for what organizers hope to repeat: more than a thousand people emailed the prosecutor's office that year opposing Reaves's release, according to WKRC's reporting, and Kober said supporters hope at least another thousand people will email this time. Cheryl Cole Candelaresi, who plans to keep working to keep her husband's killer from being released from prison, said David deserves help keeping his killer in prison.
Under Ohio law, a qualifying family member of a victim may request, through the office of victims' services, that the parole board hold a full-board hearing in cases involving aggravated murder, murder, certain violent felonies, or an offense punished by life imprisonment, according to the Ohio Revised Code. It is not clear from available records whether such a request has been made in Reaves's case.
