By DON FLETCHER
News Staff Writer
As expected, the Alabama Board of Pardons & Paroles (ABPP), during its January 11 hearings, denied parole for two Escambia County brothers convicted of killing their stepmother and stepsister nearly 30 years ago.
The most recent rejection marked the fifth time Shannon Barlow and Franklin Barlow Jr. have come up for parole. They entered the state prison system in 1995 after each entered a guilty plea to the grisly October 1993 murders of Kathy Hall Barlow and 12-year-old Angel Marie Hall at their home near Nokomis.
According to minutes of the ABPP hearings, Michelle Criswell (Kathy Hall’s niece), Doris Hancock (a victims advocate with the Alabama Attorney General’s Office) and Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall each appeared at the hearing and spoke against the granting of early release for the convicted killers.
Numerous other family members and friends either signed a petition opposing parole for the killers or sent emails to ABPP requesting that the two not be released.
Both siblings will be eligible for parole consideration again in January 2028.