By Denise Blaz
Abilene Reporter-News
DALLAS COUNTY, Texas — After spending more than 10,000 days in custody, convicted killer Wayne East was released from a state prison in Huntsville on Wednesday morning.
Jason Clark, Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman, said East, 61, will be living in Glenn Heights, a suburb in Dallas County with a population of a little more than 11,000 people.
Clark said the residence is not a halfway house.
East was convicted of killing prominent Abilene artist Mary Eula Sears in her Sayles Boulevard home more than 30 years ago, and had been awaiting parole since it was approved Aug. 28.
Sears’ body was found slumped in a blood-splattered closet Nov. 23, 1981, by two family members and a neighbor after phone calls to herhomewerenotreturned. The home appeared to be ransacked, and Sears’ throat was slashed, police said.
In prison interviews, East has maintained his innocence, saying he was wrongly accused and had no part in her killing.
Julie Denny, a relative of Sears, told Texas Monthly magazine for its November issue that she changed her mind about his guilt after traveling to Livingston, where he was incarcerated at the time, to talk to East and sifting through evidence related to the case.
“I believe him!” Denny said in the article.
East was originally sentenced to death for Sears’ murder. In October 1999, the sentence was changed to life in prison as part of a plea agreement in which he admitted his guilt.
When local law enforcement officials received word East could be paroled to Taylor County, they wrote letters to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles that led to him being prohibited from coming back to the Big Country.
The letters, sent by Police Chief Stan Standridge, District Attorney James Eidson and Sheriff Les Bruce, delayed East’s release for more than a month while corrections officials sought a place where East could live.
“I have spoken to people within the community that just as a sidebar conversation have thanked me for representing what they believe is the majority of Abilene,” Standridge said in November. “My personal thought was I believed it was incumbent on me to represent the family and the majority of the community to try to block his release back to Abilene.”
East will be required to report to a parole officer for the rest of his life and have three face-to-face meetings per month, according to TDCJ.
He will have to enroll in a treatment program for sex offenders, and must not operate, attend or work in sexually-oriented businesses. He pleaded guilty as a teenager to sodomizing a young boy.
East has said in the past that he did not commit the sex crime, and was coerced by law enforcement to plead guilty.
The special conditions also require East to participate in educational achievement testing and any appropriate educational or vocational programs as instructed by his parole officer.
East will live in Glenn Heights, a suburb in Dallas County.
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