SLO County murder victim’s relatives urge governor to block parole for killer
Relatives of a San Luis Obispo County resident who was murdered 40 years ago by a man he had taken under his wing are appealing to the state Governor’s Office to block his killer’s parole.
Edward Joseph Prokop was sentenced to 27 years to life in prison in 1981 for the robbery and murder of Robert T. Folkerts, who owned the Nipomo Swap Meet and gave Prokop a job as well as a place to stay, according to Tribune archives and court documents filed by the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office.
Prokop, 64, is currently incarcerated at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville.
At a parole suitability hearing on May 22 — Prokop’s ninth since he became eligible for parole more than a decade ago — a state Board of Parole Hearings panel recommended he be paroled.
But his release isn’t certain.
Luis Patiño Jr., spokesman for the California Departments of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s adult parole operations division, said Wednesday that the parole board’s decision will now go through a 150-day review period. During that stage, the board’s staff has 120 days to again review all legal matters and facts that were presented at the hearing.
If the board finds an irregularity, Patiño said, the agency’s chief counsel could send the case back to the full board at their monthly meeting for further action.
Should that decision pass that stage of review, it will be sent to the Governor’s Office. The governor then has a month to decide whether to uphold, reverse, or modify the decision.
Gov. Gavin Newsom could also take no action, which would result in Prokop’s release.
The San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office, which has been in contact with Folkerts’ relatives prior to the May 22 hearing, announced that it intends to formally urge the governor to keep Prokop behind bars.
Katherin Pignatelli told The Tribune that she never got the chance to know Fulkerts, her grandfather, as he was murdered before she was born. But she said his killing had a devastating impact on her family, especially her grandmother and her father, who grew up without his dad.
“We heard the stories growing up, and we were always told never to pick up hitchhikers after what happened, even if you know the person,” Pignatelli, who lives in San Luis Obispo County, said Wednesday. “(Folkerts) was just a kind and helpful man.”
Man who killed Nipomo Swap Meet owner was ‘strange kid’
In October 1980, Folkerts’ body was found in the backseat of his car on Camino Caballo Road in Nipomo, shot twice through the head, according to Tribune archives. .
Folkerts had operated the swap meet for about three years. He’d been in business in the South County for more than two decades, at one point serving as director of then-San Luis National Bank and San Luis Obispo Savings and Loan.
A court record from the state Attorney General’s Office says that Prokop, a native of Illinois, spent the late 1970s living “a transient lifestyle” with his wife and their young daughter. Around that time, he went by different aliases, including Edward Johnson.
In 1980, Prokop met Folkerts at the Nipomo Swap Meet, which Folkerts owned.
Folkerts agreed to allow the family to sleep in one of the swap meet stalls free of charge and hired Prokop to do odd jobs around the property.
According to Tribune archives, on Oct. 5, 1980, after leaving the swap meet with a bag of roughly $3,500 to be deposited in the bank, Folkerts stopped to give Prokop a ride. Prokop then drew a gun on him and demanded the money.
A struggle ensued, and Prokop fatally shot Folkerts before burying the gun and fleeing the state.
Prokop was arrested approximately a year later in Arizona, where he told a fellow inmate of the crime. Those statements were used in the local case against him.
A former employer of Prokop’s described him to authorities as “a strange kid” and a loner.
Prokop changed his plea to guilty on the first-degree murder charge just before jury selection was to begin in a plea deal that spared him the possibility of the death penalty, according to court records.
His conviction of first-degree murder was upheld on appeal in 1992.
But Prokop has pursued other means of release in recent years. After the board of parole hearings found he was unsuitable for release at his eighth parole hearing in February 2019, Prokop filed a habeas corpus petition alleging his due process rights were violated, according to records filed in San Luis Obispo Superior Court..
The state Attorney General’s Office fought against the motion, which was denied in January, court records show.
Also in 2019, Prokop was one of roughly a dozen people convicted of murder in San Luis Obispo County to ask a judge for re-sentencing and possible release under a new state law. Senate Bill 1437, signed by former Gov. Jerry Brown in September 2019, limits prosecutors’ ability to use the so-called “felony murder rule” to charge accomplices to a homicide.
Though a few of those defendants have already been released independent of the new law, many of those local requests have been rejected with different local judges taking opposing views on the constitutionality of the law.
Prokop’s petition for release was denied in March 2019, records show.
Family of SLO County murder victim speaks
Pignatelli said that, prior to the May 22 hearing, her family was contacted by the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office’s Victim Witness Assistance Center, which informed them of the possibility of his parole and assisted them in submitting a victims impact statement to the parole board.
She said the agency has been “wonderful” in keeping her family informed, and said their staff even checked in on her during the May 22 hearing to make sure she was okay.
Pignatelli said she attended the hearing via video conference due to temporary protocols related to COVID-19. She said she could not see her grandfather’s killer, but she was able to hear his voice for the first time.
She said that after she delivered her victim’s impact statement, she heard Prokop answering various questions from commissioners about his rehabilitation — including his assertions that he long served as an inmate barber in prison.
But court records show that Prokop’s story about what led to Folkert’s murder has changed several times, and Pignatelli said there are questions about his participation in self-help programs in prison.
“I think it’s mind-blowing that they’re releasing these dangerous people into the community,” she said.
Pignatelli added that Prokop’s release would be devastating to her family.
“I just want my family and the community to continue to be safe right now,” she said. “I don’t know if anything I say will make a difference, but hopefully it’s for better of the safety of the community (to speak up).”
After Pignatelli voiced her concerns on social media over the weekend, the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office said that it intends to support Folkerts’ family members by writing to Newsom’s office and urging him to overrule the board’s recommendation.
Pignatielli says she’s been informed by the state that Prokop would not be released to San Luis Obispo or Santa Barbara counties due to proximity with the victim’s family members.
Should Newsom block his release, Prokop could go before the board of parole hearings again within three years.
Asked whether she thinks the 64-year-old inmate should ever be released, Pignatelli said, “That’s hard.”
“He did kill my family member, but that aside, if he were to actually be remorseful, actually did change, and if he was going to be a person in the community who would actually help the community and not be a danger to others, then I would say yes, which is hard for me to say.”
She added: “I feel 40 years is a long time, and it would be enough time for him to come clean and tell the whole story, but he didn’t do that based on what I saw (at the May 22 hearing).”
Prokop’s former attorney, who represented him in his murder re-sentencing request, could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
