(WBIR) A convicted killer is up for parole, two decades after a double murder, and the victims' family is fighting it.
Les and Carol Dotts were killed in their Farragut home in February 1995.
Officials say the couple came back from dinner to find two men burglarizing their house, located in Farragut's quiet Village Green neighborhood. The men shot and killed the couple.
One of the two men convicted in the Dotts' killing, Thomas Gagne Jr., received two life sentences and is not currently eligible for parole.
The other man, David Scarbrough, is serving a life sentence with the chance of parole.
His first chance at parole is in early December.
Jeanne Dotts Brykalski is the victims' daughter and said she does not want to see their killer walk free.
"I didn't lose my parents. My parents were violently ripped from my life," she told WBIR on Tuesday. "To say that I miss them every day is an understatement."
Dotts Brykalski said she learned about Scarbrough's upcoming parole hearing less than two weeks ago.
Scarbrough has been incarcerated for nearly 18 years.
"It's been an ongoing nightmare dealing with the criminal justice system," Dotts Brykalski said. "Eighteen years is not justice."
She has the opportunity to speak at Scarbrough's parole hearing, but she also created a petition on change.org and is asking people to email the Parole Board.
"I don't want to see anyone else ever have to go through this again. I don't want David Scarbrough back on the streets of Knoxville. I don't want him back in our community. I don't want him as a possible neighbor, and I don't think anyone else does."
The Tennessee Board of Parole conducts nearly 17,000 parole hearings per year and grants parole to about a third of those offenders. The number of those who are violent offenders was not immediately available.
"We need signatures on the petition, we need parole protest letters," Dotts Brykalski said. "He is still young enough. If he should, heaven forbid, get released, he can continue his criminal path quite easily and possibly destroy another family, like he did mine."
She has created a Facebook page to memorialize her parents and for people to keep abreast of her efforts to keep Scarbrough from being granted parole.
"You can't get over it because there's no closure, ever," Dotts Brykalski said.
Her change.org petition is HERE. She's also asking people to send parole protest emails to Victim.Witness@tn.gov.
