A Noble Fight
The Columbus Dispatch
August 26, 2011
Bret Vinocur has successfully blocked the release of at least 50 of Ohio’s most-violent rapists and murderers, volunteering for the past eight years to help strangers fight the parole board.
Often, survivors of horrendous crimes or relatives of murder victims seek his help after finding his websites, FindMissingKids.com and BlockParole.com. When these strangers ask his fee, the answer is always the same: nothing.
But now, Vinocur is calling these debts. He is contacting victims he has helped and asking them to get signatures on BlockParole.com to keep one more prisoner locked up: the murderer of Edith Marcum, whose brutal death was the inspiration for Vinocur to take on parole system.
Vinocur met Marcum’s family in 1997, a decade after she was shot to death. The sorrow borne by her husband and four daughters was gut-wrenching, he recalled: “That family was still going through hell.”
That pain made such an impression that, years later, it would compel him to set up a nonprofit organization in his small apartment, school himself in parole-board canons and advocate for families unable to afford an attorney.
Several weeks ago, while tracking impending paroles online, Vinocur discovered the board had agreed to release Marcum’s killer; Arliss L. White has served 24 years of a 25- to 50-year sentence.
Vinocur reunited with the family and offered to help them fight the parole.
Edith Marcum was murdered at age 36, having just beaten bone cancer. Her husband had mortgaged their home to pay for her treatments, and she was working nights at a South Side drug store to cover bills. In February 1987, White and two others tried to rob the store and demanded Marcum open the safe. She didn’t know the combination. White shot her.
Every murder is horrible. But there something particularly unfair about a cancer victim enduring difficult treatments, celebrating that she would indeed live to watch her girls grow up, and then dying at the hands of a thug.
White, linked to 24 drugstore robberies, had been arrested 13 times before killing Marcum. Prosecutor Ron O’Brien has called on the parole board not to release him, saying White should serve his full sentence. The Parole Board is to consider the Marcum family’s objections at a Sept. 26 hearing; Vinocur is asking the public to sign an electronic petition on BlockParole.com to demonstrate strong public opposition to White’s release.
“Edith Marcum is a hero,” Vinocur said. He has become a perpetual thorn for the Ohio Parole Board, lobbying for laws that require the appointed board to conduct its business in public and better notify victims of pending releases.
Now he wonders if the board is sending him a message by freeing the killer whose crime impelled Vinocur to become a victims’ advocate.
The Parole Board wants White, 57, freed because he has dementia and other complications from strokes.
Whom this would serve is not clear. Whether he is released or not, White likely will remain dependent on the public — through one agency or another — for his support and his medical care.
White’s victim, whose brutal murder inspired Vinocur to block the early release of dozens of other brutal felons, deserves no less justice for herself.
UPDATE: The parole of Arliss White was reversed and denied in 2011. Three years later he was granted parole again on January 30, 2015. Less than 24 hours later, on January 31, 2015, White died in prison. Thank you to everyone who submitted a petition to block this parole. Justice has been served.