MORRISTOWN, Tenn. — In 1980, Randy Lee May posed as a law enforcement officer and persuaded two teenage girls to get into his care and drove them into the woods where he then committed violent acts, including the murder of 16-year-old Mary Jones.
Mary and a friend were on a walk in the woods in Morristown, Tennessee when Randy Lee May approached them.
"He stopped them and asked them to help them find some kids from their school whom they knew that ran away," says Mary's niece Misty Denman. "He had a badge, handcuffs, a gun, everything because he was going to school to be a cop."
Denman and Jayme Conkin are Mary's nieces.
They say May slashed Mary's throat and stabbed her multiple times.
May was later convicted of murder and attempted murder and sentenced to 60 years in prison. He's been up for parole multiple times and was denied. But now, he's scheduled to appear again on August 24th, 2023.
"At one of the parole hearings, they said to our family's face, 'It's not if we let him out, it's when.'"
Family tells News 5, they live in fear every day, even with him in prison.
"We have all these fears because we know what's out there, and what people are capable of doing," says Conkin. "He's affecting generations that he never even knew would exist and we don't want that."
They say the memory of what happened on July 20th, 1980 will forever haunt their family, the day Mary was murdered. Now, 43 years later, they continue to fight to keep Mary's murderer behind bars.
"If we didn't do what we do, I think he would have been released a long time ago, we've literally been doing petitions for 20-something years," says Denman. "We relive it all the time and it's stupid, it's not fair, it's unnecessary."
As they wait for his parole hearing, Jayme and Misty are fearful of the outcome.
"When do we get a little peace? At what point are y'all going to say, 'Okay, fine, this family has been through this, they've experienced this over and over again.'"
May is currently at the Bledsoe County Correctional Complex.
The family has started a change.org petition to keep May in prison. The link for that is here.