Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
UTAH STATE PRISON — It's been 37 years since Tammy Acord lost her grandparents in a high-profile double murder.
But the pain her family feels and the anger they have toward the man who committed the heinous crime have not changed.
"Most of us are so angry that we can’t even come to these hearings because we are afraid of what we would do, and that’s the truth,” Acord said on a recording of the recent parole hearing for John Calhoun. "I’m disgusted that we even have to come to these parole hearings."
In 1980, when Calhoun was 18, he shot and killed O. Thayne and Lorraine Acord at their home in West Valley City. Calhoun and a friend had broken into their house to steal money to buy marijuana when the Acords came home.
Lorraine Acord was tied up while Calhoun forced Thayne Acord to go to his bank and withdraw $800. When they returned to the house, Calhoun also tied up the husband and put the couple in the basement.
A short time later, Calhoun shot both in the head at close range. Moments later, he shot both of them a second time.
Thayne Acord was a prominent Salt Lake businessman and part owner of the Salt Lake Golden Eagles Hockey Club.
"They built parks, they built schools and they brought national sports teams here to Utah, without which the Utah Jazz nor the Utah Grizzlies would be here today,” Tammy Acord told the parole board of her grandparents' accomplishments.
Calhoun was spared the death penalty because of one holdout juror who reportedly had concerns about executing an 18-year-old. Instead, he was sentenced to two consecutive terms of life in prison.
Calhoun's first parole hearing was in 2001 and he was denied parole. Earlier this month, he went before a member of the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole for only the second time in 37 years.
During his hearing, Calhoun told board member Carrie Cochran his version of what happened that night. He used words such as "worthless," "horrible," "ashamed" and "sorry" to describe how he felt. But he also said he is no longer that 18-year-old who had been in trouble with the law as a juvenile.
"I was just a kid, lost. Didn’t care about anybody. Just wanted to get high. Just nowhere to go in life. That’s about where I was. Just a nothing.
"I just wanted to do what I wanted to do. I wanted to go get high. I wanted to go hang out,” he continued. "I’m no longer that little kid any more that didn’t care."
Cochran noted that after a rough start in prison, Calhoun has been a model inmate for the past 30 years, completing every life skills class the prison has to offer — twice — and earning several college associates degrees.
Despite the strides he has made, Tammy Acord says the lives of many people were changed forever because of the choices Calhoun made.
"It doesn’t matter what he did in here. Anyone that is forced to sit in a prison cell for decades can write a paper or two and get a degree,” she said angrily. "(There's) no way for him to make up for this except to rot in prison for the rest of his life. … He already got a break, in my opinion, when he was not put before a firing squad."
Acord said her family is concerned that Calhoun will be released due to prison overcrowding. She pleaded with the board to impose a natural life sentence, meaning there would be no more future parole hearings.
"I will gladly pay for every single meal, every piece of crappy prison clothing, every ’70s-style prescription glasses for the rest of his natural life. But what I’m not happy to pay for? I’m not willing for someone else to pay for his selfish decisions the way that we have,” she said.
Acord said she read through every court transcript of Calhoun's case in preparing for his parole hearing.
"It made me realize that evil as I know it is mostly selfish, uneducated, spoiled, self-serving, stupid, entitled people making horrible decisions that only benefit themselves. He wanted something he didn’t have," she said. "My grandparents were murdered over money for marijuana."
Cochran complimented Calhoun on being "an exceptional inmate." However, she, too, noted that the choices he made prior to coming to prison cannot be changed.
"Those things never go away," she said while reminding Calhoun that part of the reason there is incarceration is retribution.
"I really have no idea what will happen," Cochran told Calhoun about what the full board will vote to do.
The minimum sentencing guidelines for a case like Calhoun's is 40 years in prison, she said.
"But that’s not sentiment of the community," Cochran said.
Cochran ordered a new psychological evaluation for Calhoun and a "paper review" in a couple of months before the full board makes its decision.
