HOUSTON - A confessed killer involved in the notorious murder of a gay banker in the Montrose area more than two decades ago walked out of prison on parole today, nearly a quarter century after committing a crime that stunned Houston.
Jon Buice served 23 years of his 45 year sentence for the killing of Paul Broussard, who was one of a trio of friends attacked by a gang of ten young men in Montrose in 1991.
His victim's mother had fought to keep him in prison for at least four more years because Broussard was 27 when he was murdered.
Buice exchanged a few words with his father outside the Walls Unit in Huntsville, but he didn't answer questions from KHOU 11 as he walked to a waiting car.
"They promote him as being a very hateful killer," said his father, Jim Buice. "Wasn't anything like that at all."
Buice was 17 years old when he stabbed Broussard during an attack that happened on the Fourth of July in the largely gay nightclub district in the heart of Montrose.
Broussard's murder happened in an era when gay men walking in the Montrose area were routinely attacked, beaten and sometimes killed, often by teenagers driving in from Houston suburbs. Gay rights activists quickly labeled it a hate crime and pressed prosecutors for stiff sentences.
But in an odd twist to the story, longtime gay activist Ray Hill befriended Buice after he went to prison and came to the conclusion the attackers weren't murderous gay-bashers but drunken teenagers who went to Montrose to visit a nightclub and ended up in an especially violent fight. If the killing wasn't a hate crime, Hill argued, Buice deserved a shorter sentence.
"What started out as a story where I was offering forgiveness for people I helped send to prison became a story about my seeking their forgiveness for getting the story wrong," Hill said.
Hill ended up lobbying for Buice's parole and waited to greet him as he walked out of prison. The killer's father, who struck up an unlikely friendship with Hill, laughed and joked outside the Walls Unit as they awaited Buice's release.
"I ask people to view their own hearts," said the killer's father. "What if it was one of their own family? Would they feel the same? I don't have any hatred for people that hate my son. I actually feel sorry for them."
Under the terms of his parole, Buice will have to wear ankle monitor, avoid contact with the victim's family and get permission from his parole officer if he ever wants to return to Harris County.
Buice has earned four college degrees while in prison, including a master's degree, his father said, and he's already lined up a job working on designs for high-rise residential buildings.
"Jon is a good man," Hill said. "He's not a boy anymore, he's a good man. And it's going to be a challenge to spring back, but I have every confidence that he's going to do that."
