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A man convicted of killing his roommate in 1989 in Mountain View has been found suitable for parole, the San Mateo District Attorney’s Office said Friday.
Mark Hensley, 55, was convicted in 2002 of the murder of Kathleen Noble, 23, on Feb. 25, 1989, which went unsolved for ten years until Noble’s family asked the San Mateo Sheriff’s Office to reopen her case, District Attorney Stephen Wagstaffe said.
Noble was found dead in her car in East Palo Alto more than a week after being reported missing by her family. Investigators found that she had probably been bludgeoned to death in her Mountain View apartment and then placed in the car.
According to prosecutors, Noble was murdered after she refused to change her relationship with Hensley “from roommates to boyfriend-girlfriend.”
The prosecutor in the case said that a former girlfriend of Hensley alleged he had tried to choke her and that Noble had been locking her bedroom door at night because she was scared of him.
Hensley, 19 at the time of the murder, denied any involvement in her death at his trial, but told the parole board in a previous hearing that he had hit her with a champagne bottle.
Defense attorney Myra Weiher at the time said that significant pieces of evidence from the 1989 investigation into Noble’s death were missing, including police reports, witness interviews and a polygraph taken by Noble’s boyfriend, with whom she reportedly quarreled shortly before her death. In addition, several witnesses, including the doctor who conducted Noble’s autopsy, had died in the intervening period.
Hensley had his fourth parole hearing on Thursday, which was attended by Noble’s sister and two brothers, all of whom strongly opposed his parole, Wagstaffe said.
The parole board considered the Youthful Offender Law and the Elder Parole Law, plus noted that Hensley had not had any recent rules violations at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center state prison and that he had underwent extensive programming, according to Wagstaffe.
Ultimately the board found that Hensley did not constitute an unreasonable risk of danger to the community and found him suitable for release. His case must now go through an administrative review and then must be approved or reversed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, Wagstaffe said.
This story was written by Katy St. Clair for Bay City News Service.
