MP Lawler calls for ban on parole for sexual assault and murder of victims under 18

The bill is titled “Paula Bohovesky and Joan D’Alessandro Law.”
The bill would expand the current law that prohibits parole if a murder victim is 14 years old or younger.
A murderer could not obtain release if the charge involved a sexual offense against a victim under 18 years of age.

Two notorious murders in the Hudson Valley decades ago sparked another effort to expand federal parole restrictions for anyone who sexually abuses and kills a child.

U.S. Representative Mike Lawler has introduced bill HR 8587 in the House of Representatives, which would expand an existing law that excludes parole if the victim is 14 years old or younger to exclude any chance of parole if the victim is under 18 years old.

The bill features two names familiar from Rockland County in New York and Bergen County in New Jersey:

Paula Bohovesky was 16 when she was killed on her way home from her job at the Pearl River Library after high school. She was beaten and stabbed to death by two men who had spent the day at a local bar. The murder occurred a block from Paula’s home in 1980.

Joan D’Alessandro, a 7-year-old who sold Girl Scout cookies in her neighborhood in Hillsdale, New Jersey, was sexually assaulted and murdered by her neighbor, a teacher at Tappan Zee High School, in the spring of 1973. Her body was found days later on the edge of Harriman State Park in Stony Point.

The bill is similar to one that Lawler, a Republican who now represents the 17th District in the U.S. House of Representatives, pushed in New York when he was a member of the state Assembly, but that bill did not advance.

Extends existing federal laws

The federal legislation would add to existing federal law that prohibits parole for anyone who sexually assaults and kills a victim under the age of 14. The bill would add: “or if the victim is under the age of 18, if the charge involves a sex offense.”

For decades, New York and New Jersey have had versions of Joan’s Law, which prohibits parole if a victim under the age of 14 is sexually assaulted and killed. In New Jersey, unlike New York, Joan’s Law was updated in 2017 to include victims under the age of 18.

“The bipartisan Paula Bohovesky and Joan D’Alessandro Act will create penalties at the federal level that will ensure no family has to endure the pain of seeing their child’s abuser released from prison,” Lawler said in a statement.

A similar bill has not been introduced in the US Senate. In the House of Representatives, the bill is currently before the Judiciary Committee.

The cases now

Although New Jersey passed Joan’s Law in 1997 and expanded it in 2017, the little girl’s killer could still seek parole.

John McGowan was a chemistry teacher at Tappan Zee High School. Joan, a 7-year-old Girl Scout, tried to sell him cookies. The house was directly across the street from the D’Alessandros’ home in a densely populated neighborhood in Hillsdale, New Jersey. He grabbed her and she was dead within minutes. That was on Maundy Thursday. McGowan then drove to Stony Point and dumped her body on the edge of Harriman State Park. Her body was discovered on Easter Sunday.

McGowan is one of four killers profiled in the book “The Killer Across The Table” by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker. They also wrote the popular book “Mindhunter,” which is the basis for a Netflix series of the same name. Although he only killed once, the authors firmly believed that McGowan was a serial killer who simply lacked opportunity.

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