Life sentence didn't mean life for Barry Donald Congo

By Patricia C. McCarter
January 5, 2010

HUNTSVILLE, AL -- For crimes committed between 1984 and 1995, Barry Donald Congo was sentenced to 15 years, 30 years and life.

But the MadisonCounty man - much like most people sentenced to prison - didn't serve anywhere near that time. And though the 45-year-old was accused of committing another felony Sunday in the noon stabbing of a relative, he won't be going back to prison.

After he allegedly knifed Robert Hall, 48, at a home at 2208 Fairfax St. in Huntsville, police say he drove to a trailer on U.S. Highway 72 in Gurley and shot himself.

He was transferred to HuntsvilleHospital and later died, according to Madison County Investigator Brent Patterson.

"They are blood related somehow, but we don't know how yet," Patterson said about the two men.

Hall remains in critical condition, and police have not yet released details of the argument that precipitated the stabbing.

Congo's name became familiar to much of Huntsville after the 1995 robbery and assault of Eunice Merrell, proprietor of Eunice's Country Kitchen on Andrew Jackson Way, a popular breakfast and lunch spot with politicians across the state.

According to Congo's testimony in 1996, his friend Johnny Howard Smith proposed that they kidnap Merrell as she left her home for work in the early morning, rob her of money she reportedly kept in her car, and leave her in a remote area.

Merrell required 300 stitches to close an eight-inch gash on her head. She said she survived by playing dead.

Congo, who turned himself in to police, testified that Smith beat her with a weight bar and robbed her of checks and money she kept in her stockings. His testimony got him a life sentence.

Prior to the robbery, Congo was convicted three times on MadisonCounty theft charges. In 1984, he was sentenced to 30 years for theft.

He also was convicted in 1991 by a MorganCounty jury of escape while on work release. A Morgan County Circuit Court judge sentenced him to 15 years in prison, revoking his parole on the theft charges, and he was paroled in 1993.

Robert Oakes, assistant director of the Alabama Department of Pardons and Paroles, said regardless that Congo was considered a habitual offender and was given life, he was automatically eligible for parole after 10 years or after a third of sentence was served, "whichever comes first."

Congo's parole for the 1995 robbery was a unanimous vote of the three-member board in May 2006, and that board stipulated that he live in a transition center before rejoining society.

"There's no sure, predictable indication of what someone's behavior is going to be (after release)," Oakes said. "They go through risk assessment, screening, interviews with parole officers. And all of this information is given to a board which uses its discretion.

"There are so many factors that go into determining parole, like programs they've completed, availability of support once they leave... Last year, about 40 percent of paroles considered were granted."

Oakes said the parole board adopted a new rule in 2001 that requires inmates convicted of class A felonies involving violence serve 85 percent of their time, or 15 years, but that rule was not retroactive.

Oakes said he's accustomed to the public not understanding - and not approving of - the process that inmates are allowed to leave prison.

"That's the nature of parole," he said. "You'll have these occasional, for lack of a better term, sensational cases where something dire happens and everyone wonders what happened, why that person was out.

"But the board has to parole people, as an over-crowding issue, and even that doesn't take care of (overcrowding.)"

Oakes said Alabama has one of the lowest recidivism rates, which hovers at about 18 percent. The national average, he said, is 66 percent.