Parole Board won’t release Geary, Bacon

Friday, Sept. 4, 1998 | 4:47 a.m.

A Parole Board spokeswoman said Friday that Geary was told he could try again in three years for a parole from a sentence imposed for the stabbing death of a woman in 1974.

But even if Geary, now 67, was paroled from that life sentence, he'd still face additional prison time for the July 1992 death of his Reno roommate while on parole from the sentence he got for the 1974 slaying.

Geary had been paroled three times from the sentence imposed for his first murder, but each time was arrested for drinking and imprisoned again. He was paroled a fourth time and a month later was arrested for the murder of roommate Edward Colvin.

Colvin's killing led to a death sentence, but the Nevada Supreme Court overturned the sentence in December 1996.

The board also rejected a parole request from Armand Bacon, 62, who was imprisoned after his 1963 conviction for the beating death of a school teacher who ran out of gasoline while driving between Elko and Battle Mountain.

Bacon was told he could try again in three years. He has been paroled at least twice before, but was imprisoned in California for crimes committed in that state in the mid-1980s. After that, he was returned to the Nevada prison system where he's now doing time for burglary.

The three-year denial is the longest that the Parole Board can impose in pre-1995 cases. In both cases, the board refused to ease the convicts' sentences due to the nature and severity of their crimes.