Man granted '13 parole after serving time for 1991 slaying

A man who was 16 when he helped kill his friend's stepfather has been granted parole.

Charles Pete Ulibarri, 35, will be released from prison on April 30, 2013, said Utah Board of Pardons and Parole spokesman Jim Hatch.

Upon his release, Ulibarri will have served 22 years behind bars for the April 1991 slaying of David Young.

Ulibarri and Young's stepson, Joseph Russell Hill, had gone to the victim's Ogden home to retrieve Hill's things. But when they found Young's gun collection, they began firing some of the weapons inside the house and stealing things.

"It kinda turned into a robbery," Ulibarri told Utah Board of Pardons and Parole member Clark Harms during his parole hearing earlier this month.

He said Hill told him to hide when Young walked in unexpectedly. There was some shouting, Ulibarri said, and then Hill shot Young three times. Young fell, and Ulibarri stepped from his hiding place, shooting the man once. Hill, then 18, fired a final shot into the back of Young's head before the teens fled.

"He was already down. I really don't know why I even shot him," Ulibarri said.

Ulibarri pleaded guilty in September 1991 to capital murder — one of the youngest people in Utah to do so at the time — and was sentenced to serve life in prison with the possibility of parole. Hill pleaded guilty to capital murder and other charges three months later and received an identical sentence. His next parole hearing is scheduled for 2011.

The parole board cited Ulibarri's age at the time he committed the murder, his rehabilitative promise and his "complete acceptance of responsibility" as mitigating factors in deciding to grant his release.

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