PENDER COUNTY — A Pender County man who was sentenced to life in prison for first-degree murder in 1995 has been granted parole.
Keith Wagner will be released on June 22, 2019, according to a release from the The Post Release Supervision and Parole Commission sent Monday morning.
Wagner will be released under the Mutual Agreement Parole Program, which acts as a, “three-way agreement between the Commission, the Division of Prisons, and the offender.
Wagner was indicted in August 1993 for the murder of Annette Miller after he fired a .22-caliber bullet into a trailer she occupied.
According to witnesses of the shooting, Wagner said, “’I’m going to kill all you (expletive) in here”‘ and that defendant looked at Theresa Jordan and said, “Especially you, (expletive).”
Wagner’s defense team had tried to get charges dismissed, then appealed his conviction. The claim was that Wagner was never allowed to review his confession for accuracy. Several pages of that confession were used by the jury.
In addition, the defense argued the jury should have been allowed to reduce the charge to voluntary manslaughter, but was given no such instruction.
The case reached the North Carolina Supreme Court in 1996. The court ruled the lower courts had made no error.
According to witnesses of the shooting, Wagner said, “’I’m going to kill all you (expletive) in here”‘ and that defendant looked at Theresa Jordan and said, “Especially you, (expletive).”
According to current state law, parole has been eliminated for crimes committed after October of 1994, but the Commission will parole those sentenced under previous guidelines.
Keith Wagner parole notice by Michael James on Scribd
