12-02-2025
Lincoln Mabry Jr., who killed Becky Kerr in 1980, granted parole
[Watch FOX 8 I-Team coverage from 2022 in the player above.]
(WJW) — A man who abducted then killed his estranged ex-girlfriend in front of her 8-year-old daughter will soon be paroled from prison.
Lincoln Mabry Jr., 84, is serving a life sentence for the 1980 murder of Becky Kerr in Perry Township.
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He has previously been denied parole, but the Ohio Parole Board at his most recent parole hearing on Tuesday, Feb. 11, granted Mabry's release from prison, to begin on April 14, according to an Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction spokesperson.
Kerr's daughter, Melissa Binius, was 8 years old when Kerr was killed. Mabry, armed with a gun, forced her and her mother into a car, ordering Kerr to drive. She stopped the car at a Perry Township gas station and tried to flee on foot. Mabry opened fire.
'He emptied a gun once, reloaded and emptied it again,' Binius told FOX 8 News in 2017. 'He then made me get out of the car and stand by my mother. I just stood there and waited. I was all alone and it seemed like forever.'
Mabry later turned himself in. He was convicted of aggravated murder and abduction and sentenced to life in prison with eligibility for parole after 15 years on the murder charge.
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Kerr's brother Joe Kerr told the FOX 8 I-Team in 2022 that Mabry had physically abused his sister. Mabry even threatened to kill Joe Kerr for telling his sister to leave him.
'He had no remorse,' he told the I-Team. 'To do that in front of a little 8-year-old, that's not the kind of person we want walking around on our streets.'
Before Mabry's parole hearing, more than 3,000 people signed a petition to keep him behind bars, according to the petition website Care2.
Mabry is currently incarcerated in London Correctional Institution in London, Madison County, according to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction website.
Learn more about how parole works in Ohio on the ODRC website.
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