DOC Error Allowed Inmate Out Early To Commit Murder

A man accused of brutally beating to death a Lafayette man last month should have been in prison. An error by the Department of Corrections in calculating his sentence for previous crimes he committed allowed Antonio Williams to kill 26-year-old Jememy Gibson after he was released 17 months earlier than he should have been released in March. The Lafayette Journal-Courier's Sophia Voravong has the story:

The gruesome details surrounding Jeremy K. Gibson's abduction and beating death with a pickax or shovel on July 6 in rural Tippecanoe County was difficult enough for the Lafayette man's family.

On Friday afternoon came more bad news: One of the suspects charged in Gibson's brutal killing should have been in prison when the crime occurred.

A clerical error by the Indiana Department of Correction released Antonio O.J. Williams 17 months early, the Tippecanoe County prosecutor's office learned.

Now, Gibson's family members have tough questions they want answered . . .

Doug Garrison, chief communications officer for the Indiana Department of Correction, confirmed the error Friday.

"We certainly regret our mistake that we made that led to Williams' early release, and we certainly offer our sincere condolences to the family of Jeremy Gibson," he told the Journal & Courier.

You may recall that IMPD Officer David Moore's tragic murder while in the line of duty was committed by Thomas Hardy, a 60-year-old man who was mistakenly released from a Marion Co. jail due to a clerical error. Last year, DOC officials mistakenly released a sex offender who raped a woman in a South Bend drug store bathroom just days after his release from prison. If Gov. Daniels had decided to seek the 2012 presidential Republican nomination, his Republican primary opponents would have no doubt seized on these cases to question his management of the state as governor.