Family fighting to keep their mother's killer in prison

Hasan Karim
Marion Star
Katherine Howard during a trip to Graceland. She was murdered at a dairy mart in 1989 after being shot four times in the back.

MARION - Katherine Howard walked into her local dairy mart on a hot summer day in 1989.

She had stopped after work to pick up a few items for a weekend trip to Lake Erie.

However, the mother of two was never able to make a purchase that day. While perusing the store's selection, she was shot in the back four times. 

Still grieving, Howard's family is fighting to keep her killer — who is up for parole again — behind bars. 

The Ohio Parole Board will decide in August if Brenda C. Lewis, who pleaded guilty to the murder, will become a free woman after serving 28 years in prison. 

Lewis has been incarcerated since 1990 after being sentenced to 15 years to life. It is her fifth time up for parole, the last being in 2013.

The place where Howard lost her life on Bellefontaine Avenue is now under a new name. But it's still a place her children refuse to go since that tragic day on June 20, 1989.

Police had arrested Lewis there all those years ago. She had followed Katherine Howard into the store that day. 

Now, Howard's children want to make sure their mother's killer spends the rest of her life in prison. 

"We have to relive the whole tragedy over and over again," said Howard's daughter, Crystal, who says there isn't a day that goes by when she's not thinking about her mom.

Brenda C. Lewis has been incarcerated since being found guilty of Howard's murder in 1990. She is up for her fifth parole hearing on August 3.

"We lost our mom right when we were starting our lives, our families," she added. "I was 18 years old at the time, and I needed her."

Over the past month, Crystal Howard and her family have collected a little over 1,000 signatures against releasing Lewis. They presented those to a member of the parole board earlier this week along with personal letters and statements.

The goal is to convince them to keep the woman who killed Katherine Howard behind bars for now.

"I am concerned for my safety," Crystal Howard said.

"We are trying to protect not only our family's safety if she should get out, but any community she might move into," said Brandi Mattingly, Katherine's great-niece through marriage

Lewis has had a long history with Katherine Howard's family, having dated and lived with her ex-husband and Howard's children.

Crystal says she was 10-years-old when Lewis first pulled a gun on her. 

"She (Lewis) has a history of mental illness. You never know what is going through someone's head."

According to an inmate information report, Mattingly said Lewis has been in and out of the mental ward at the prison and has not done anything to rehabilitate herself.

Howard's family said that is reason enough why the convicted murderer should not rejoin society.

The board is expected to review the case on Aug 3. Katherine Howard's family and friends plan to stand outside the Ohio Reformatory for Women that day with signs that read "justice for mom" and "Murder equals Life."

"They (Katherine's children) can't share what they have accomplished in their lives with their mom," said Debbie Howard, who is Mattingly's mother. "They don't have that anymore."

HKarim@nncogannett.com

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