Judge orders Man, who served 28 years in jail for 3 murders, sent back to jail

BREWTON, Alabama

Pardue

Michael Pardue, who spent nearly 3 decades in prison on 3 murder convictions that were later overturned, was ordered back to prison Wednesday over a recent fight with his ex-wife in Mobile.
A judge ruled that Pardue, 55, violated his probation on a 1987 burglary conviction when he was armed with a gun during a scuffle at the couple’s home in Mobile in May.
Escambia County Circuit Judge Bert Rice ordered that Pardue should be sent back to prison for the remaining 15 years of a 20-year prison sentence in the burglary case.
Prosecutors said with credit for jail time already served, Pardue would likely serve closer to eight or nine years, although that’s still unclear.
It marked another twist in Pardue’s long history with the justice system, including being convicted of 3 slayings in the Mobile area, escaping from prison 3 times and finally being freed by the courts in 2001 after the murder cases were all overturned on appeals.
The burglary conviction was connected to one of his escapes from Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, in which he broke into an assistant warden’s home and stole a gun and a car.
After the judge’s ruling, defense attorney Jeff Deen said that Pardue is “persona non grata in Escambia County because they haven’t forgotten he broke into the warden’s house ... time moves slowly in a Southern small town.”
The defense has argued that the court doesn’t have the authority to send Pardue back to prison because the 20-year sentence — five years in prison followed by probation — has long since been completed.
Prosecutors, though, said his 15 years of probation began in 2001, when he was released from prison, which means he was still under court supervision in May.
On Wednesday, the judge heard 2 hours of testimony about the May 28 incident in Mobile, including Pardue’s ex-wife, recorded 911 phone calls, a state probation officer and a Mobile police officer.

Ex-wife concerned Michael Pardue would commit suicide
 His ex-wife, Becky Pardue, testified that the couple only got a divorce for financial reasons, and “in my heart and soul, he’s my husband.”

Michael Pardue and his wife, Becky

She said on May 28, Michael Pardue had cooked dinner, cleaned the house and mowed the yard while she took a day trip to Florida.
When she got home, she was too tired to pay attention to him, she said, and he got frustrated, pulled out a gun when she wouldn’t talk to him, and he fired a shot at a wall, she said. He grabbed her by her housecoat and pulled her to the front porch, she said, before she went to a neighbor’s house and called 911.
She said she was concerned that he would commit suicide. She said he suffers from depression after spending 28 years in prison on wrongful convictions, grieving the deaths of several family members and losing their home in Hurricane Katrina.
“I was afraid for Mike’s life,“ she said. “He was not trying to kill me. He was not trying to shoot me.”
She said she previously brought her father’s gun into the house even though she knew Michael Pardue wasn’t supposed to have access to weapons.
A Mobile police officer who investigated the incident, though, said that Becky Pardue told police that her husband had dragged her and held a gun to her head.
Pardue was convicted on a misdemeanor menacing charge in connection with that incident in Mobile Municipal Court in June. That conviction carries a maximum punishment of 6 months in jail.
Escambia County District Attorney Stephen Billy said that the fight “could have been a lot worse,” and Pardue deserved to be sent back to prison.
During his 10 years on probation, Pardue had no other probation violations, according to testimony.
Deen said that the defense plans to appeal the decision.
Pardue, who has been in jail, will now be transferred to the custody of the Alabama Department of Corrections.
In 1973, Pardue was convicted by a jury in the shotgun slaying of a young clerk at a Battleship Parkway service station. He also pleaded guilty to murdering a store clerk in Saraland, and a Prichard man whose skeleton was found in north Mobile County.
Over the next three decades, those convictions were overturned through various appeals, including rulings that a confession had been coerced and police failed to read Pardue his rights until they were 30 hours into a 78-hour interrogation. He finally was released from prison in 2001.
While serving time, Pardue escaped from prison three times. In 1977, he walked away from a prison near Montgomery and stole a car. He was captured three days later in Gadsden.
The following year, he drank large amounts of water at a prison near Atmore, giving himself a kidney infection that he passed off as appendicitis. Following an appendectomy at a hospital in Mobile, he wrestled with a guard and ran away. He was caught a week later in Louisiana.
In 1987, he rode a horse to an assistant warden’s house, stole a .357 Magnum and a Corvette and drove away. He later traded the gun for gas and drove to New Orleans and back to the Mobile area. He visited his dying father before being captured again.