Inmate who was 16 when he killed a man tells parole board he has changed

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Draper » Thirty-five-year-old Charles Pete Ulibarri has spent more than half his life at the Utah State Prison.

Ulibarri was 16 when he participated in the murder of an Ogden man in 1991. He was 17 when he pleaded guilty to capital murder and was sentenced to prison for up to life.

On Tuesday, Ulibarri told Utah Board of Pardons and Parole vice-chairman Clark Harms: "I'm glad I came to prison. The life I was living, I might not have lived to see 18."

Ulibarri insisted he has turned his life around during his 18 years behind bars. But that process did not begin until about eight years ago, after his marriage to a volunteer teacher he met at prison ended in divorce.

"That's when the light came on," Ulibarri said. "I liked somebody needing me, and me needing somebody."

He said he realized that to have a chance at another relationship, he needed to stop fighting and stop doing drugs in prison. He said he made it his mission to get as much education as he could.

"I've got stuff to make up for," Ulibarri said. "Not just to the victim's family, but my family, too. Everything I do is an homage to him [the victim], so that two lives aren't wasted."

The slaying occurred April 22, 1991, after Ulibarri and co-defendant Joseph Russell Hill, then 18, broke into the Ogden home of Hill's step-father, David Dale Young.

Ulibarri said he and Hill went there to get Hill's personal belongings, but the break-in turned into a robbery. And when Young arrived home unexpectedly, Hill shot the 43-year-old man several times with a .22-rifle belonging to the victim.

Ulibarri said he shot Young once in the abdomen, then Hill finished the man with yet another bullet to the head.

"I was freaked out, amped up," Ulibarri recalled. "I was literally out of my mind. I didn't know what was going on."

The two teens each pleaded guilty to capital murder and aggravated burglary. Hill's next parole hearing is scheduled for May 2011.

When Harms asked what he would say to the victim's family, Ulibarri said, "Don't judge me for what I did, but for what I've done since coming to prison, because that's the person I am now."

Harms told Ulibarri that other inmates convicted of capital murder who have been released, have typically spent about 28 years behind bars. But only a quarter of those convicted of capital murder ever are released, Harms added.

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