39 years ago when he was 27, Willie Lagway went on a five-day crime spree. See https://freepress.org/article/ohio%e2%80%99s-broken-parole-system

At a party,

Lagway was given some amphetamines. Later when his friend's car was pulled over in a traffic stop, in order to hide them, he swallowed them all. Lagway sensed something was wrong and went to a hospital looking for medical care. He went to the office of the hospital psychologist but the receptionist turned him away. In the following days, most probably in an episode of amphetamine psychosis, he robbed six women and raped two of them.

At trial, the court-appointed psychologist reported him mentally ill and not competent to stand trial; however, the judge ignored the report, continued with the trial, and even allowed Lagway to represent himself. Because the judge did so, in an appeal a new trial was ordered, in which he was again convicted. At both trials, Willie Lagway refused to allow attorneys to cross-examine the victims, wanting to spare them any more pain or trauma stemming from the incident.

Ever since, he has been filled with remorse for the pain and harm he caused the victims.

During his 39 years in prison, Willie Lagway has experienced a profound personal transformation that has turned him into a kind, caring, responsible person. In Lagway's time in prison, he has made many positive contributions to other inmates and the Ohio prison system: teaching, tutoring, and paralegal studies.

For the last 13 years, he has taught in an environmental literacy curriculum, Roots of Success, a program to reduce energy, waste and water use within the prisons – and to prepare inmates for employment in green jobs upon release. In 2012, he became one of only two people in the Ohio prison system certified to train others (both prisoners and staff) to instruct in the program. Through the work of these two inmates, this progressive inmate-taught program has now been spread to almost all of Ohio's prisons.

No benefit for behaving behind bars.
Ohio's “old-law prisoners” are those sentenced before 1996. The old-law prisoners and a few lifers are the only prisoners subject to the Parole Board; a person sentenced after 1996 was given a definite sentence and will be released when he or she completes it. There are now at least 3,000 old-law inmates eligible for parole who have been in for 26 years or more. Some, like Willie Lagway, for almost four decades.

The risk of an old-law prisoner re-offending is small—the likelihood of reoffense drops off sharply with age. Not only is Lagway 67 years old, but he earned a Bachelor's degree in prison; the risk of reoffense for people in that category is 0%. However, typically, the Ohio Parole Board denies parole to each old-law prisoner every five years, often not because of any concern for public safety but because of the “seriousness” of the original offense – which never changes, though the person who commits it can and often does.

In 1999, Ohio’s Parole Board stopped giving prisoners a projected release date. Prisoners are now just repeatedly refused parole without explanation or guidelines for ever getting out. The prisoner, shattered by the denial, is further shattered by being left in limbo – not knowing whether the parole board has any intention of releasing him or her, ever.

If you want to mail an actual letter to the Parole Board, here is their address:

Parole Board
Attn: Parole Hearing. Lagway, Letter of Support
4545 Fisher Rd., Suite D
Columbus, OH 43228