Francis Soffen has been eligible for parole since 1987.
Convicted murderer Francis Soffen gestures at his parole hearing, Monday, July 6, 1998 in Boston. SPRINGFIELD – One was shot six times in the head, at close range, with an automatic pistol.
The other ended up in the Connecticut River, wrapped in plastic, two bullets in the back of his head and his body not found until six weeks after he was killed.
The eight rounds that Francis F. Soffen pumped into his victims in 1972 were enough to make him one of Springfield’s most notorious killers, enough to keep him locked up for four decades, and enough for the state Parole Board to deny 14 requests for his release.
On Tuesday, the leader of the so-called Soffen Gang will appeal for freedom at his 15th parole hearing.
“Enough is enough,” the 72-year old wrote on a prison blog recently, explaining that his poor health and exemplary prison record – including saving the life of a correctional officer – make him an obvious choice for release.
“I’m dying,” Soffen wrote. “Hurts to admit it, but the truth is often painful.”
Before being charged in the two execution-style killings in 1972, Soffen cut a swathe through Greater Springfield – stealing from news stands and bakeries as a boy, robbing supermarkets, jewelry stores and banks in his criminal prime.
In 1971, Soffen and his crew pulled off three bank heists in Springfield, a spree that netted $58,000 while intensifying law enforcement pressure on the gang.
By the next summer, Soffen was arrested not only for the Springfield bank robberies, but also for killing two alleged accomplices.
In a plea deal with then Hampden district attorney Matthew J. Ryan Jr., Soffen admitted robbing the three banks, and killing Stephen J. Perrot, of Springfield, and Gary J. Dube, of Agawam.
Both men were killed for the same reason – to keep them from testifying about the bank heists, according to prosecutors. At 34, Soffen was given concurrent 15-years to life sentences for the killings, plus concurrent 18-20 year sentences for the bank robberies.
In both killings, Soffen said he acted in self-defense – first, when he shot Dube twice in the head while riding in a car through Ludlow on the Massachusetts Turnpike in May 1972; and two months later, when he shot Perrot six times in the face and head behind the Howard Johnson motor lodge on East Columbus Avenue.
(In the aftermath of the killings, prosecutors acknowledged that Dube, a 24-year old bartender and acquaintance of Soffen’s, had been mistakenly charged in the case.)
At his first parole hearings in the late 1980s, Soffen claimed that both men had pulled guns on him first; at more recent hearings, Soffen said his own fear and paranoia led to the killings.
Barring unexpected developments, Tuesday’s hearing in Natick is likely to follow a familiar script, with relatives of the victims vehemently opposing any release and Soffen insisting he is too old, too sick and, now, too virtuous to harm anyone else.
An angry Bonnie Dube Clark gestures at the parole hearing, Monday, July 6, 1998 in Boston., for convicted murderer Francis Soffen. Since the first parole hearing in 1987, Dube’s sister, Bonnie Dube Clark, of Agawam, has been an especially formidable opponent for Soffen, appearing at a dozen hearings to denounce him variously as a con-artist, sociopath, a “deranged animal” and a “53-year-old punk.”
In a recent letter to the Parole Board and a letter-to-the-editor which will be published in The Republican on Monday, Clark restated her belief that Soffen’s rationale for his crimes might have changed over the years, but not Soffen himself.
“We all get old and sick, but that should not be an excuse to release a prisoner, especially one with a criminal mind such as his,” Clark wrote. “He has his life; he definitely should not have his freedom.”
Assistant district attorney Diane M. Dillon has been to previous parole hearings for Soffen and will be there again on Tuesday to voice opposition to his release.
“He really hasn’t owned up to responsibility for (the killings),” the prosecutor said last week, noting that his “self-defense” explanation failed to explain the two bullets in the back of Dube’s head.
In 1990, when a Parole Board member asked why a second shot was fired into Dube’s skull, Soffen responded: “I don’t know why.”
Sisters Gailann M. Melloni of Springfield and Bonnie Lee Clark of Agawam hold a painting of their brother, Gary Clark.After the killing, Soffen and a passenger, Edward J. Uschmann Jr., formerly of Westfield, drove to Worcester to buy beer, then returned to Springfield to dispose of the body, Soffen testified.
In one of the case’s subplots, a murder charge against Ushmann was dropped after he testified about Soffen’s roles in the turnpike killing and the bank robberies.
A year later, Uschmann – the son of Springfield parking lot owner Edward Uschmann – and several others held up the Holyoke National Bank, escaping with $297,000, the largest bank heist in Western Massachusetts at the time.
In 1974, Uschmann was given concurrent seven- to 10-year sentences for robbing the Holyoke bank and another in Indian Orchard in 1971.
Remarkably, the former bank robber found a second career on the public payroll as superintendent of Montgomery’s highway department.
Not long after retiring from the town highway job, Uschmann was snared in a 1989 cocaine distribution case that resulted in a 57-month federal prison sentence.
In April, Uschmann, 67, died at home in West Springfield.
In prison, Soffen has won a growing number of supporters – not just his two brothers and two adult children, but also prison guards and counselors for the state Department of Corrections and a former House speaker, John F.X. Davoren.
More recently, prison activists have championed his release, citing various maladies – four heart attacks, diabetes, prostate cancer, hepatitis – that keep him confined to the medical unit at Norfolk state prison.
As his health deteriorated, Soffen’s accounts of his crimes have grown more self-critical; at a 2003 hearing, he was telling the board he acted like a “jerk,” adding: “I express remorse. I’m sorry.”
The 2003 hearing was the closest Soffen got to freedom as the board deadlocked on a 3-3 vote, narrowly denying him the majority support needed for release.
A year ago, The Republican was among several media outlets which received “press releases,” offering an interview with Soffen, stating the “infamous Massachusetts prisoner and reputed mob member, has agreed to be interviewed concerning the history of crime in the commonwealth of Massachusetts.”
“Mr. Soffen has in-depth knowledge of the workings of the Massachusetts criminal machine having been a lead player for many years. Mr. Soffen has been in prison since 1972 and has held the secrets that connect many mysteries in the commonwealth,” the release stated.
The release stated that “due to his infamy and notoriety,” the Parole Board had denied all his requests for release. It outlined his medical issues and said Soffen “has also been a leader in prison government, groups and organizations, working for the betterment of all.”
Soffen shared his story with a reporter for the Metro West News last summer in which he acknowledged his “smart mouth” might have got him in trouble at previous Parole Board hearings. In that interview, Soffen said he wanted to live at the St. Francis House, a homeless shelter in Boston, if released and volunteer at the Shriners Hospital in gratitude for treatment one of his children received there, according to the News’ account.
More recently, on the BetweenTheBars prison blog, Soffen offers periodic dispatches on life in prison and his campaign to get out.
On July 7, he discussed his conversion to Christianity five years ago.
“I want to do good works, works I pray will afford some atonement and reparation, but in order to do those works, I need to be healed physically,” he wrote.
“In order to achieve this healing, I must secure my release from prison,” he added.
An Nov. 15, 2010 dispatch offered a more pragmatic appeal for his release.
“Dying right in front of their eyes while your tax dollars fly out the window,” the headline read.
At Tuesday’s hearing, Soffen will face a transformed Parole Board, with new members appointed by Gov. Deval L. Patrick following the death of a Woburn policeman killed Dec. 26 in a shoot-out with a recently-paroled career criminal.
Five members who voted in 2008 to parole the prisoner, Domenic Cinelli, of Woburn, were removed by the governor in January.
As part of the Parole Board’s overhaul, Patrick ordered a review of state policies governing the release and monitoring of violent offenders.
In her letter to the board, Dube Clark urged members to consider the turmoil caused by the Woburn case.
“Please do not let Francis Soffen be a second mistake,” she wrote.