Cancer-stricken killer’s plea for release is denied by parole board

The Colorado Board of Parole has denied a convicted murderer’s special request to be released because she has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

KRDO NewsChannel 13 broke the news of Jennifer Reali’s cancer diagnosis earlier this month.

The six person board took less than 30 minutes to unanimously deny the request by Reali.

Reali was denied release during a regular parole hearing in October. She then asked the Colorado Board of Parole for a special needs hearing. It would have granted her early release on the basis of her cancer diagnosis.

The decision means that Reali will continue to be held at a Lakewood halfway house where she has lived since Governor Bill Ritter commuted her prison sentence.

Reali, dubbed the “fatal attraction killer”, spent 22 years in prison for killing a mother of three in Colorado Springs.

The crime shocked the community in 1990: Dianne Hood, a wife and mother, shot dead as she left a lupus support group meeting. Reali was having an affair with Brian Hood, Dianne’s husband.

Jennifer Reali will be eligible for parole again in October of 2015.

Heather Skold will have much more on this story tonight on KRDO NewsChannel 13.