The Arizona Republic newspaper reports today that Jacob Edgar Wideman, son of former UMass professor and author John Edgar Wideman, lost his bid to win parole after serving 25 years for killing a fellow camper while in Flagstaff, Ariz., in 1986.

At a hearing Tuesday, Jacob Wideman, now 41, said he did not plan to pick up a knife and stab Eric Kane in a hotel room while on a trip through Arizona a quarter century ago as part of a tour of national parks. Both Wideman and his victim were 16. (At left, Jacob Edgar Wideman.)   

The proceeding before the Arizona Board of Executive Clemency drew Wideman's father and Kane family members, who spoke against allowing Jacob Wideman to go free this fall. He will be eligible for parole consideration again in a year.

"I am stunned still by what happened 25 years ago," the Arizona Republic article, by Michael Kiefer, quotes John Edgar Wideman as saying in the parole hearing. "I find myself unable to speak about it to the (family). I can only prostrate myself before them and say good luck."

His daughter, Jamila, spoke before the board, as did Jacob Wideman's mother. The five-member board's vote against parole was unanimous. 

In his application for parole, and in remarks to the board, Wideman said he has overcome his mental-health problems and wants to work with children and in the field of mental-health care.

Kane's family spoke strongly against his release. "I think he's a sociopath," Louise Kane, the victim's mother is quoted as saying in the Arizona Republic article. "Anyone who could kill for no reason at all, other than that he had violent thoughts and impulses, shouldn't be in society."

The killing came a year after John Edgar Wideman published "Brothers and Keepers," a memoir about the different roads he and a brother took from a Pittsburgh ghetto. While John Edgar Wideman attended an Ivy League college and became a Rhodes Scholar and author, his brother ended up in prison serving, like his son later would, a life sentence for murder.