SEATTLE The state review board has decided a man convicted of killing a 13-year-old girl in 1982 will be released on parole.
John Athan has served seven years for strangling Kristen Sumstad. Athan, her neighbor, was 14 at the time.
He was arrested 21 years later after DNA evidence linked him to the crime. Investigators got a DNA sample from Athan by getting him to lick an envelope.
In January, members of the Indeterminate Sentence Review Board determined Athan had shown improvement and he was scheduled to be released on parole June 6. But his release was suspended after Sumstad s sister, Lorraine Dean, appeared on KING 5 News to say that was not long enough.
The Department of Justice is working to verify the address where Athan will live before he is released.
