Patrick Malone| The Pueblo Chieftain
CENTENNIAL - Seventeen years after going to prison for conspiring to kill her police officer husband, Donna Yaklich is halfway home.
The Arapahoe County Community Corrections board on Thursday approved her transfer from prison to a halfway house in an 11-6 vote.
The board's chairman, Thomas Vockrodt, said within 10 days Mrs. Yaklich could be out of prison and living in the Arapahoe County Residential Center, a halfway house for women. It serves fewer than 100 residents.
Mrs. Yaklich, now 50, was convicted of conspiring with two brothers in the December 1985 shooting that killed her husband, Pueblo Police Department narcotics officer Dennis Yaklich, 38, in the driveway of the couple's Avondale home. Mrs. Yaklich was sentenced in 1988 to 40 years in prison.
Prosecutors argued that Mrs. Yaklich was motivated by an insurance windfall of $250,000 to enlist the help of brothers Edward and Charles Greenwell to kill her husband for a $45,000 share of the insurance money. She denied knowledge of the killing at first, then her lawyers argued that the contract killing was her only way out of an abusive marriage.
Charles Greenwell, now 36, was released from prison in 2003 after serving 18 years of a 20-year prison term. He was 16 at the time of the killing. Edward Greenwell, 45, has served 19 years of a 30-year prison term for second-degree murder. Barring early parole, he is expected to be released from prison in 2010.
In recent news accounts Mrs. Yaklich has expressed contrition for her husband's murder.
Vockrodt said the majority of the board believes Mrs. Yaklich is ready for the transition.
\"I suspect it was because the board believed she would not be a threat to the community and that she would benefit from the community corrections (treatment) programs,\" Vockrodt said.
Vockrodt also said some board members may have viewed the move as a cost-saving measure. He said the daily cost of housing Mrs. Yaklich in a halfway house is $63 less than keeping her in a maximum-security prison.
Mrs. Yaklich did not attend Thursday's hearing. She awaited news of the outcome at the Colorado Women's Correctional Facility in Canon City.
No oral statements from those who attended the hearing were accepted by the board, although board members asked questions of Mrs. Yaklich's lawyer and the director of the halfway house that accepted her.
The board weighed letters urging the release of Mrs. Yaklich against those calling for her to remain in prison. One of the letters was from Mrs. Yaklich.
\"She (wrote that) she could offer more to the people of the state of Colorado in community corrections than in prison,\" Vockrodt said.
Letters supporting Mrs. Yaklich's release were submitted to the board by her son, Dennis Yaklich Jr.; Dennis Yaklich's stepdaughter from a previous marriage, Kim Chantala; Mrs. Yaklich's mother, Phyllis Filler; an aunt, an uncle and a sister, according to Philip Cherner, Mrs. Yaklich's lawyer.
Among those who corresponded with the board in opposition to her release were her husband's daughter from a previous marriage, Vanessa Yaklich; Dennis Yaklich's 69-year-old brother, Eddie Eldon; and Pueblo police Sgt. Jim Ruggieri, a former partner of Dennis Yaklich.
\"I named Donna ‘crabgrass’ right after I met her,\" Eldon said. \"I told my brother once she gets a root in here, you can never get rid of her. She'll suck you dry.\"
Vanessa Yaklich was hysterical with tears in reaction to Thursday's decision.
\"It's devastating,\" she said. \"She's a manipulative, vindictive, conniving woman. My father never battered her. If I feared anybody in that household, it was Donna.\"
Vanessa Yaklich characterized her stepmother as a chameleon prone to infidelity and impulsive maliciousness. She predicted that these traits would be Mrs. Yaklich's downfall in community corrections.
Filler, Mrs. Yaklich's mother, said she believes her daughter will succeed in the program and prove her worthiness for full parole from the prison system. Mrs. Yaklich has a parole hearing in July.
\"I know she'll do good there (in a halfway house),\" Filler said. \"I continue to pray that she'll get parole. First she has to get through community corrections. I know she regrets the terrible crime it was.\"
In community corrections, Yaklich faces a stiff challenge. According to Vockrodt, she will rely on public transportation in her quest to find employment, and must succeed in the treatment programs and life-skill lessons that the halfway house provides.
\"She'll presumably get a job, pay taxes, pay restitution and become a productive member of society,\" Vockrodt said.
Filler said her daughter hopes to land a job counseling abused women.
\"She wants to encourage (other women) to get away from the problem or solve the problem some other way,\" Filler said. \"She will advise against the way she handled it. She's regretted it every day.\"
Cherner said the longer someone has been in prison, the more difficult the transition into an outside residential setting becomes.
\"When Donna went into prison, there was no Internet and people still had dial telephones,\" Cherner said. \"There's going to be a period of adjustment. I've seen others who are released from prison who have to be reminded that they don't have to be handcuffed to go somewhere. But I think Donna can do it. Donna can make it. She probably feels like a kid waiting on the night before Christmas.\"
Thursday's hearing was held in Arapahoe County because Mrs. Yaklich had been accepted in advance for placement at the Arapahoe County Residential Center.
The director of the halfway house, Kevin Duckworth, explained the treatment center's position to the board: \"The amount of time she's been (in prison), lack of criminal history, lack of discipline problems in prison - we think she's a good fit. I think she would benefit greatly from the programs we offer.\"
Filler said if her daughter is granted parole next summer, she will request a move to Oklahoma, where her uncle resides. Cherner said he would support his client's parole to a community outside of Pueblo.
\"For everyone concerned, she's better off somewhere other than in Pueblo,\" he said.
