Linda Sue Glazier realized a dream last night that she had thought impossible -- release from the women's prison in Jessup that had been her home since she was convicted in the murders of her adoptive parents 20 years ago.
Ms. Glazier was released after Gov. William Donald Schaefer commuted her two life sentences, accepting her argument that abuse as a child led to her role in the murders.
With her long, gray hair swept back in a headband, and clutching a small television set one of her lawyers had given her to pass the time, Ms. Glazier emerged from prison at about 7:20 p.m. and fell into the arms of a loyal cadre of friends and advocates who had long awaited the moment.
Citing her record as "a model prisoner" and the persistent support on Ms. Glazier's behalf, the governor cut her two life sentences to 25 years. With the "good time" she had accumulated during her 20 years in prison, her time behind bars ended last night.
Ms. Glazier, 38, will remain under community supervision for the next five years.
Asked the first thing she would do with her freedom, Ms. Glazier answered: "I don't know."
She said she didn't believe she was really getting out "until I signed the papers. . . . Actually, I didn't believe it until just now."
A friend who greeted her, Leslie Pickett, said Ms. Glazier had told her from prison that she wanted to take a hot bath when she got out -- and "put on some clothes she hadn't worn in here."
The governor yesterday also announced that he had commuted the 10-year sentence of former Prince George's County Councilman Anthony Cicoria, convicted of tax evasion, violating probation and theft. Mr. Cicoria was released Dec. 23, and is to remain on parole supervision for the rest of his sentence.
Mr. Schaefer quietly signed executive orders for both commutations Dec. 21, but they were not announced until yesterday, shortly before Ms. Glazier's release.
L Ms. Glazier's release troubled the judge who imprisoned her.
"I'm disappointed," Somerset County Judge Lloyd L. Simpkins, now retired, said last night. "She doesn't deserve to be out. It was an unusually coldblooded murder."
William and Dorothy Glazier were found shot to death in their bed in Cambridge in September 1974, just after Linda, their adopted daughter, turned 18. Her boyfriend, James Ottie Greenwell, then 23, pulled the trigger while Linda Glazier was in another room.
Ms. Glazier was never accused of actually shooting her parents, but was found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder, in part because she helped Greenwell make the killings seem to have resulted from a robbery.
She told police at the time that she and her boyfriend had planned the murder for months because of her father's ongoing sexual abuse, though she said she had no idea that Greenwell would actually carry out the murders on the night he did. Greenwell told police that William Glazier had fondled his
daughter's breasts that very night.
Greenwell still in prison
Greenwell, also sentenced to two life terms in a separate trial, remains behind bars.
Defense attorneys said they were not able at the time to present Ms. Glazier's accounts of rapes and beatings by her father as mitigating evidence before Judge Simpkins.
Those who supported her argued that if her case had occurred years later, when battered-child syndrome became much more accepted as a defense, Ms. Glazier would have received much less time.
Mr. Schaefer paved the way for Ms. Glazier's freedom last year, when he made her eligible for parole by making her life terms concurrent. But the Maryland Parole Commission declined to release her at a hearing.
Parole Commission Chairman Paul J. Davis did not return a phone call yesterday. Maxine Eldridge, a spokeswoman for the Parole Commission, said she could not comment on why the commission did not grant parole.
Joseph L. Harrison Jr., the governor's press secretary, said Mr. Schaefer believed that Ms. Glazier "deserved a new start."
Several lawyers and members of the Epiphany Episcopal Church in Odenton had worked feverishly for Ms. Glazier's commutation. Their petition for clemency on her behalf was the first in Maryland based on a claim of sexual and physical abuse.
Epiphany Church members worked out a plan for Ms. Glazier's release, arranging for a place for Ms. Glazier to live, which they will not disclose.
Ms. Glazier kept her record clean in prison and joined support groups for survivors of incest. She received a business degree from Morgan State University.
"She went in as an 18-year-old girl and is coming out as almost a 40-year-old woman," said Paul Mones, a Santa Monica, Calif., lawyer who has worked on Ms. Glazier's case for years.
"So she will have all the problems you would expect. But what Linda has going for her is she has many, many people in the religious community who have stood by her. . . . She has a very, very good support system."
Other friends were jubilant at news of her release.
