Ex-Lynn killer turned poet seeks parole

LYNN – Norman A. Porter Jr., the Lynn-born killer-turned-poet laureate, wants out of prison.Currently serving a life sentence for the shotgun slaying of Saugus store clerk John “Jackie” Pigott of Lynn during a 1960 robbery on Route 1, Porter, 69, is scheduled to pitch his case for release today to the state Parole Board in Natick.The parole board will also decide whether to revoke the commutation Porter received from former Gov. Michael Dukakis in 1975 for a second murder conviction related to the shooting death of a Cambridge guard during an escape attempt.During his more than two decades behind bars, starting in the early 1960s, Porter became a model prisoner favored by wardens and the darling of liberal intellectual groups. He was given special privileges and one day in 1985 he simply walked away from a minimum-security facility. For the next 20 years he remained on the lam, until lawmen caught up with him in 2005 in Chicago, where he was living life as a celebrated poet under the alias J.J. Jameson.Porter’s recapture made national headlines and once again stirred the deep emotions of the victims’ families.”He’s an animal. He belongs behind bars for the rest of his life,” said Nancy Bray, whose mother, former Lynn resident Claire Wilcox, was engaged to Pigott when the crime occurred.On Sept. 29, 1960, Pigott was working as a 21-year-old clerk at the former Robert Hall clothing store on Route 1 in Saugus. Porter and another masked bandit robbed the employees at gunpoint. Witnesses claimed Porter shot Pigott and plucked a $10 bill from the dying man’s fingers. Porter has always denied pulling the trigger.While awaiting trial, he participated in the murder of jail guard David S. Robinson at a Cambridge courthouse. Although he was not the triggerman, he provided the smuggled weapon.Former Gov. Michael Dukakis commutated Porter’s sentence stemming from Robinson’s murder, but authorities have since argued that the governor’s pardon was voided the day Porter walked away from the minimum-security facility. Doing so violated the terms of his parole agreement.Pigott’s murder made headlines for its brutality and because the victim was the son of a prominent Lynn family. Pigott’s father was vice president of Essex Trust in Central Square, his mother an executive secretary at GE.Porter’s gun-toting partner, Theodore Mavor of Peabody, was also convicted in connection with the Saugus robbery and murder. He was later stabbed to death during a fight at Norfolk State Prison. Shortly thereafter, Porter began telling all who would listen that Mavor had pulled the trigger, but several eyewitnesses told a different story.”Three eyewitnesses are still alive today. They’re in their 80s but all of them have no doubt it was Norman Porter who pulled the trigger,” said Dottie Evans Johnson of New Hampshire, Pigott’s cousin and childhood playmate. “He still denies being the one who killed Jackie, and he blames me for making up lies, but believe me, he doesn’t deserve to get out. I believe the sentence he imposed upon Jackie should be up when his sentence is up. That’s the way I feel about it.”Steve O’Connell, spokesman for the Essex District Attorney’s Office, explained that Porter was twice convicted of second-degree murder, one for each slay case, and as a result received two separate sentences of life imprisonment. Further, the court ordered that the second life sentence would be served “from and after” – meaning it would not begin until the first was completed.Porter had pleaded guilty in both cases.When the first life sentence was commutated by Dukakis in 1975, the clock started ticking on the second life sentence. But Porter decided not to gamble on another commutation or favorable parole hearing. Instead, in 1985 escaped. Upon his recapture, a judge sentenced him to three years and a day for the escape.”The sentence for his escape is now up,” O’Connell said. “He will be asking the parole board to release him from the Essex life sentence and at t