Thomas Hoyer, the triggerman in the November 1984 Red Door Deli murder of 22-year-old Arthur Nolan of Carlisle, is getting out.
And Laura Nolan, who as a 15-year-old had to make funeral arrangements for her brother and who’s spent the last 37 years keeping Hoyer is prison, doesn’t know what she’s going to do.
“I feel like I failed,” Ms. Nolan said, with the clock ticking.
“I told my brother in his casket, I told my mother in hers, that I would never let this happen. And yet I have.”
Thomas Hoyer, then 17, and his brother, William, then 19, pleaded guilty to killing Mr. Nolan with a single shotgun to the chest on November 12, 1984,
They were captured after a three-day manhunt and the case never went to trial.
William Hoyer was paroled a dozen years ago; Thomas Hoyer has been serving 23 years-to-life, time that includes charges of attempted escape.
Now that time’s up—catching Ms. Nolan—who’s been arguing against his release—ever—since 2002, by surprise.
“Six months ago [at a parole hearing] he was still judged to be a danger to society,” she said.
“Now all of a sudden he’s good to go? He’s rehabilitated? When he’s never admitted what he did or admitted any remorse? I did not see this coming.”
Ms. Nolan’s spent 37 years dissecting police reports from the November 14, 1984 murder-robbery.
Police said the burglary was a way to come up with $150 Thomas Nolan needed to pay a fine for charges upgraded to grand theft auto after the murder for a car they’d stolen the night before the murder.
The murder was for fun.
Chillingly, Mr. Nolan was filling in for a co-worker the night he was killed.
While she was searching for anything she could come up with to keep Thomas Hoyer in prison, one of the people Ms. Nolan heard from was that co-worker, married, with kids, happy in her life, never knowing how close she’d been to losing it.
Ms. Nolan didn’t tell her that the Hoyers had timed the burglary to catch her—not Arthur—behind the counter.
Or that they’d brought a knife.
“Almost 40 years,” she said. “The life that Arthur never had. All of us. Kids, grandkids, jobs…”
Because she’s kept such a close eye on Hoyer’s parole hearing, Ms. Nolan knew even before she got the June 29 letter from the state’s Office of Corrections and Community Supervision that he’d been cleared for release.
“I am writing to inform you that the above named inmate was granted a release decision when he met with the Parole Board,” the letter reads.
“The inmate will be released to parole supervision on or about August 4, 2021. The release date could be earlier if the community plan is approved earlier.”
Ms. Nolan said she’s been told Hoyer will be paroled in Montgomery County, possibly to live with family in Amsterdam, possibly to a halfway house in Canajoharie or Fort Plain.
Where she lives.
“Will he end up living three doors down from me? Will be the guy who opens the door for me at Stewart’s? I have no way of knowing. I don’t even know what he looks like. And how long is he going to last outside without getting into trouble?”
Even though she knew it was coming, Ms. Nolan said she was devastated when she got the Office of Corrections letter and she holed up inside for days, crying.
“I feel like I failed everyone,” she said. “This was never supposed to happen…This is what I spent my whole life trying to stop.
“I wasn’t thrilled when William was paroled, but at least he was remorseful. Not Thomas.”
With Hoyer out, Ms. Nolan’s also concerned for her own safety and her family’s; Hoyer has told jail officials he wants to meet “her” in person—though he shouldn’t even know that she’s the her that’s been fighting to keep him inside.
“And I don’t know where to go from here,” she said. “This has taken up my whole life. He’s robbed us all of so much.
The hardest part is that I feel like I’ve failed my family. The logical part of my brain says I haven’t, but my heart says I have.”