HUNTINGTON, W.Va. –Convicted murderer Cherylethia “Bunny” Holmes will remain in prison to serve out the rest of her sentence for now.
An evidentiary hearing was held Friday in front of Cabell County Circuit Judge Chad Lovejoy, after a petition was granted Tuesday April 8th to delay Holmes’s release from prison on April 9th. The West Virginia Parole Board granted Holmes her release in March. Holmes was convicted in 2004 for ordering the death of Wendy Morgan and sentenced to life in prison with chance of parole after 15 years.
Cabell County Prosecutor Jason Spears says that the board gave her credit for a separate federal prison sentence that happened before she was convicted on this case.
“They applied the wrong amount of time to make her eligible and the judge’s order today, which we believe is the correct order, was to reset that clock the way it was supposed to,” Spears said.
During the hearing, Spears brought back retired Judge Alfred Ferguson, who was the original sentencing judge, to explain what he meant in his sentencing order in 2004.
Holmes defense attorney, Joe Hunter, argued against bringing Ferguson up to testify. He said that she should have been given time served for when she was in the state’s custody for the trial in this case. And because in a resentencing order that was filed in October 2010, stated that Holmes should receive credit for any time served in this case, that was signed by Judge Ferguson and the prosecuting attorney at the time.
Ferguson said that in his order, he wanted the two sentences to run consecutively from one another, meaning that once she finished serving the federal sentence, then she would start serving the states sentence.
Spears says that this was clear.
“Yes, she would get credit if there were any, but the judge made it clear, there wasn’t,” he said. “She got in fact she’ll two bites of the apple pie, that’s completely separate than a state sentence.”
Holmes didn’t start serving the murder sentence until November 2011.
In response to having Ferguson up on the stand, the defense called in Jonathan Huffman, who is the Director of Records for the Department of Corrections Rehabilitations. Huffman said that when considering parole, they look at the most recent order sent by the court. So, they were looking at the order from 2010 instead of the original sentencing order from 2004.
Spears said that this case is going to set the standard and make sure that this mistake doesn’t happen in any other case.
“Is to set a standard and to set that law and to make it clear that one it has to be followed, the correct dates and the correct time have to be followed and two we’re not arbitrarily say oh well,”
He said that when Holmes is up for parole, he will be there to speak out against her being release.
“This was an egregious crime, she was convicted by a jury that she arranged a murder, a hit on someone over drugs, and that’s horrible,” Spears said.
Holmes was also the person that police believed killed four teenagers on May 22, 2005. However, no criminal charges were ever brought forth.
Joann Clark, the mother of Eddrick Clark, one of the kids killed that night was at the hearing on Friday.
She said while she was glad that Holmes wasn’t being released from prison, she still wants justice for her son and until then she will keep talking about the horrible incident.
“Until I get to go to court and get some justice for my child, I’m never going to sleep on it, I’m still going to continue talking about it, cuz I want justice for my child and until I get that I guess I don’t have an ending point,” Clark said.
Holmes will now be eligible for parole in November 2026.