Parole has been denied for Arthur L. Stevenson, jailed since 1974 and serving a life sentence for the brutal stabbing of a Warren County jailer, according to the Mississippi State Parole Board.

Stevenson, now 58, was given a one-year setoff — which allows a state prisoner to be considered for parole again in 10 months, spokesman Stephanie Skipper said.

His life sentence was imposed in 1997 for killing A.H. “Holly” Koerper, on duty alone the morning of July 6, 1974. Stevenson was a jail trusty when he stabbed Koerper 26 times with a butcher knife. He and a female prisoner fled the jail, but were captured at a house on Farmer Street.

The case took a circuitous route to the life sentence that Stevenson now serves. Three trials were held in four years, with one ending in a mistrial and two ending in convictions and death sentences — quickly reversed by the state Supreme Court. Before a fourth trial in 1978, Stevenson entered a guilty plea and agreed not to seek parole. However, in the mid-1990s, the Supreme Court threw out the plea because a life-without-parole sentence didn’t exist at the time.

In 1997, a fourth conviction was handed down in Warren County by Lincoln County jurors. The life sentence enabled the parole board to consider whether he should be freed.

Lists of prisoners are sent to the five-member parole board monthly. Several factors are used to determine individual cases, including criminal history, date of the offense, severity, psychological and psychiatric history, amount of time served and crimes committed while incarcerated, among others.

Results of the reviews are confidential. Family members of victims are to be notified within 10 days if a prisoner is paroled. If they are deemed eligible for early release, parolees submit to drug and alcohol testing on a case-by-case basis.

Mississippi law then and now allows that death sentences can be imposed for killing law enforcement officers, which includes jailers.

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Contact Danny Barrett Jr. at dbarrett@vicksburgpost.com