Mary Hickerson loves Boise. It’s where she grew up, where her friends live and where she feels safe.
The 18-year-old said she’s happy that feeling of security will continue into 2014, now that the woman who attacked her when she was a child will remain in prison until her sentence is complete.
The Idaho Commission of Pardons and Parole turned down Rae Ann Leach’s request for parole Thursday, following Mary Hickerson’s tearful testimony. Hickerson told the board there was no way to guarantee Leach would follow a medical plan to keep her mental illness under control.
“Every morning, I wake up and see my scars,” Hickerson said. “I have not had a single day go by where I have not been reminded of what happened.
“Boise can’t feel safe (to me) as long as Rae Ann Leach is out (of prison).”
Leach has been in prison since 1999, four years after she cut Mary Hickerson’s throat during a psychotic episode. Mary, whose family lived next- door to Leach in Boise’s North End, lost half her blood and almost died. Today, she’s a healthy high school senior.
Leach eventually pleaded guilty to aggravated battery and was originally given probation. But she was sent to prison when she didn’t follow a probation plan that required 24-hour supervision. She will remain in prison until she completes her sentence in June 2014.
Leach told the board Thursday she was committed to following a strict parole plan and would take all her medication.
“I’m here. I’m well. I’m safe. I haven’t heard a voice for years. I’m ready to go out to the world and live,” Leach said.
The white-haired 68-year-old, dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit, was lucid but subdued, answering most questions quickly and clearly. She didn’t visibly react when her parole was denied.
Leach suffers from mood and thought disorders, including schizophrenia and manic depression; she takes lithium, Prozac and an anti-psychotic medication. She told the parole board that the medications are working and that she hasn’t heard any voices — like the one that told her to hurt Mary in 1995 — or had any hallucinations since 2006.
“I’m committed to my medications for life,” she said.
A psychiatrist who conducted a mental evaluation in October for the state concluded that while “we don’t know what the future holds,” Leach would likely benefit from getting better treatment in the community than she gets in prison.
Dave Leach, Rae Ann’s husband, said the 1995 attack occurred after her psychiatrist took her off one of her medications. He also told the board that Leach heard voices in 2006 because her medication had been switched. That didn’t happen once she was back on the appropriate medicine, he said.
Dave Leach asked the parole board to release his wife, saying he had made arrangements to hire a medical professional to be with her whenever he couldn’t.
He also said he felt it was time for Leach to come home, and he pledged to ensure she followed whatever treatment was needed to keep her and the community safe. He said she would stay at the family’s rural home north of Boise.
Leach said he understood the Hickersons’ “anger and desire for retribution” and said he prayed for “God’s blessing and healing, especially for Mary.”
Dave Leach left immediately after the hearing without comment. Parole board members did not say why they denied Leach’s request.
Mary Hickerson had gone to court to get the right to read the state’s pre-sentence investigation on Leach.
She said she was concerned to learn that evidence showed that in the years before attacking her in 1995, Leach had threatened more than once to kill her own children.
Leach will be 70 when she is released from prison and will then be under no parole restrictions or supervision.
Mary Hickerson said she will move out of Boise before Leach’s release.
Patrick Orr: 377-6219
