NATICK — An 82-year-old man convicted of killing a Saugus store clerk and a Middlesex County Jail master was granted parole Tuesday, more than 60 years after the murders took place.
In their unanimous decision, the Parole Board cited Norman Porter’s “numerous severe medical conditions” and his “institutional behavior, as well as his participation in available work, educational, and treatment programs during the period of his incarceration” in determining that he has been rehabilitated.
Porter had previously faced two consecutive life sentences for the 1960 murder of Jackie Pigott, a store clerk at the Robert Hall Clothing Store in Saugus and the slaying of Middlesex County Jail Master David Robinson, which occurred while he was being detained for Pigott’s murder. He was convicted of the second-degree murder of Pigott in 1962, a consecutive life sentence after he was sentenced to life for Robinson’s murder in 1961.
In 1975, Gov. Michael Dukakis commuted Porter’s sentence for killing Robinson and the concurrent life sentences to a term of 36 years and 6 months. A decade later, while in custody at the Norfolk pre-release center, Porter “walked away” from the facility and never returned. He was then deemed a parole absconder and a violation warrant was issued in January, 1986.
Porter remained on the run for nearly two decades, taking on a new identity and moving to Chicago, where he established himself as a poet under the name of Jacob A. Jameson. He also lectured at a local church and worked as a handyman before being captured by Massachusetts authorities in 2005.
At the time, a judge ordered Porter to serve three years to three years and one day for the escape, to be served “for and after” the life sentence he still faced for the Piggott slaying.
Since his detention in 2005, Porter has appeared before the Parole Board four times — most recently in 2015, when his request was denied. In all, Porter served 42 years before being paroled this week.
The board established a number of special conditions for Porter’s release, including being reserved to an approved home plan, a curfew, and not having contact with the victim’s families, among others.
Charlie McKenna can be reached at [email protected].
