By C1 Staff
HUTTONSVILLE, W. Va. — A woman has kept the promise she made 25 years ago by helping to keep her uncle’s murderer in jail.
W.V. Metro News reports that Sara Janey-Bragg takes her case every three years to the board against Robert Gray when he comes up for parole.
Gray killed Janey-Bragg’s uncle, Putnam County Sheriff’s Department Deputy John Janey, in 1989 when Janey was trying to arrest him in an arson case.
“I was confident but you always have that fear in the back of your mind,” Janey-Bragg said. “He’s been in there for 25 years and maybe they will think at one point in time that he’s served his time, but I know that in my community’s heart and my family’s heart that he has not paid for what he’s done.”
Deputy Janey was off-duty and working for an insurance company on an arson fraud case the night he ran into Gray, who was suspected of committing the arson.
Gray maintains that he acted in self-defense.
Janey-Bragg was six when her uncle was killed, but she promised her grandmother before her 2007 death that she could continue to fight against Gray’s release.
“Every three years until he takes his last breath or something happens to me. I will be there and I will be fighting. I owe it to my grandmother and I owe it to my uncle.”