I probably drove by the house hundreds of times without really noticing all those yellow ribbons tied to tree trunks and mail boxes. Then one day I stopped to ask about them on my way to work, and Charlotte and James Slemp told me about their daughter, Debbie Hill.
I remember thinking, ''What a sad, strange story.'' Lost her husband to cancer in 1993. Dated a former farm hand. then she dropped him, and he turned ugly, harassing, threatening and terrorizing her and her son at their remote Hamilton Township farm house.
She fled to motels and her parents' house. He threatened to kill them all or hire someone to rape her and cut up her face ''so you won't be so cocky about your looks.''
In the fall of 1994, she went to the law for help. She filed charges: phone harassment, Sept. 9; menacing, Sept. 12; stalking, attempted break-in, failure to serve arrest warrant, Oct. 24; failure to serve arrest warrant, Oct. 26.
The cops couldn't find him to serve warrants, but he always managed to find her and her son. He was always there, like a menacing shadow in a wide-awake nightmare. One cop told her to get a gun and keep it loaded and close.
On Nov. 2, the man who couldn't understand ''no,'' Omer Pierson, approached her car on rural Butterworth Road and she emptied a Lady Smith & Wesson revolver into him through her rolled up car window.
On 911 tapes, the cops seemed to think she had done the world a big favor.
''This will be pretty cool if it works out,'' said a Clermont County deputy.
A Hamilton County cop replied, ''Man, no doubt, I hope it is him cause . . . ''
The cop's sentence is unfinished, but other cops on the tapes offer one explanation: ''Warren County is advising that . . . Omer threatened to kill a police officer yesterday.''
And, ''He was going to kill anybody that tried to take him to jail again.''
Debbie Hill immediately turned herself in. She accepted a bargain to plead guilty to carrying a concealed weapon: 2-10 years. She and her lawyer thought she would be out in a year at most. After all, it was her first offense; considering the way she was terrorized, the killing was justifiable homicide.
But her sentence is far from finished. On July 12, the Ohio Parole Board considered her case for the third time and ''continued'' it until April, year 2000. She will probably serve five years, with only a ghost of a chance to be paroled in 1998.
The Parole Board cited ''the serious nature of the crime.'' Yes, someone was killed. But her only crime was carrying a concealed weapon.
A Department of Corrections spokesman said the deciding factor was a strong recommendation against parole by the prosecutor. But the prosecutor in Warren County, where she was sentenced, had no comment, according to a spokesman. The protest against parole apparently came from Robin Piper, a special prosecutor from Butler County. He did not return a phone call asking for his reasons.
Since I've been following the case, I've learned a few things along the way:
The law is a cruel joke to women who are stalked and threatened. The cops can't stop it, and the courts blame the victim if she dares to protect herself the only way a woman can, with a gun. No wonder concealed-carry permits passed by many states, including Kentucky, are popular among women.
Ohio Parole Board members have taken a hard-case approach since they were scorched last year for paroling murderers and a cop killer. On the morning Debbie Hill's freedom was denied, they heard nine requests for parole - and rejected all but one, who had served 15 years for robbery and forgery. They added time to the crimes at an average rate of nine years each.
Fine with me for rapists and other violent criminals. But if you lock 'em all up and throw away the key, you throw away some people who deserve to be free - like Debbie Hill.
And if the Parole Board can't tell the difference between a rapist and a woman who shoots a stalker to protect herself and her family, then the Parole Board is just a useless charade.
One more thing I have learned: The more questions I ask about this case, the stranger it gets. It looks like I'll be driving by those yellow ribbons for a few more years.
When will the state of Ohio notice what they mean?
Peter Bronson is editorial page editor of The Enquirer. If you have questions or comments, call 768-8301, or write to 312 Elm Street, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202.
