A man who is convicted of killing Michael Jordan’s father nearly three decades ago is scheduled for parole in August 2024. But on Tuesday, a North Carolina State panel said that his parole has been canceled, according to the Associated Press. In 2020, the Post-Release Supervision and Parole Commission announced that Larry M. Demery would be released as part of an agreement in which he would participate in a scholastic and vocational program. Originally, Demery was scheduled to be released from prison in August 2023.
The commission gave no reason for the cancelation of Demery’s parole but said that the “agreement has been terminated” effective immediately. Demery is currently serving a life sentence for the first-degree murder of James Jordan in 1993. He will be reviewed for parole again on Dec. 15, 2023. Demery, 46, is currently serving his sentence at a minimum-security prison in Lincoln County, North Carolina. Since 2001, Demery has recorded 19 infractions, including two for “substance possession” earlier this month.
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James Jordan was killed in July 1993, and Demery, along with Daniel A. Green, was convicted of the murder. Demery testified that Green was the triggerman, and both men were 18 at the time. James Jordan was sleeping in his car along the side of an access road of U.S. Highway 74 before he was killed. His body was found in a South Carolina swamp 11 days later.
Demery pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison plus 40 years. He was resentenced in 2008, receiving a life sentence with the possibility of parole. Green is also serving a life sentence in prison. Michael Jordan talked about his father in the documentary series The Last Dance in 2020 and got very emotional.
“He was my rock. You know, we were very close. He constantly gave me advice,” Jordan said, per Entertainment Tonight. “I remember, in ninth grade, I got suspended three times in one year, and my father pulled me aside that summer and said, ‘Look, you don’t look like you’re heading in the right direction. You know, if you want to go about doing all this mischievous stuff, you can forget sports.’ And that’s all I needed to hear. From that point on, it was like tunnel vision, and I never got in trouble from that point on.”
