The Kansas Prisoner Review Board has granted parole to the man who shot and killed a Kansas Highway Patrol trooper with ties to Reno County in 1978. The Board’s decision to grant parole to Jimmie Nelms was made in March, and the Kansas Department of Corrections said in a statement the board believes there is a reasonable probability Nelms can be released without detriment to the community.
Nelms was convicted of first degree murder, aggravated kidnapping and a weapons charge in connection with a May 24, 1978 altercation with Trooper Conroy O’Brien after a traffic stop along the Kansas Turnpike near Matfield Green, during which one of three suspects was able to get O’Brien’s service weapon and, after walking him to a nearby ditch, pistol-whipped him and then shot him twice in the head.
KHP Colonel Eric Smith said in a statement the call he received from the Secretary of Corrections about the parole was a “gut-punch.” Smith said the Highway Patrol has adamantly and publicly opposed patrol after every hearing, the most recent of which was March 6th. Colonel Smith added there is no conceivable world in which the release of a convicted cop killer – an executioner – is acceptable. However, he added they must live with it by continuing to support his surviving family and his blue family with professionalism and dignity.
At the time of the slaying, Kansas law did not have a provision for a life without parole sentence, which allowed persons receiving a life sentence eligible for parole after serving 15 years.
At the time he was slain, Trooper O’Brien had been a member of the Highway Patrol for four years. O”Brien was a graduate of Fairfield High School and Sterling College, and he and his wife were expecting their first child. US 50 in western Reno County is named in Trooper O’Brien’s memory.
A date for the release of Nelms has not been set by KDOC.
