This story was produced in partnership with The Frontier.
Tony Mann's siblings worry they are running out of time to get their older brother out of prison.
After serving more than four decades for first degree-murder, Mann is in poor health. He turned 70 during a recent hospital stay for pneumonia, said his younger sister, Cindy Welch.
"At this point, whatever we could do to get him eligible for freedom is what we want to do," Welch said.
Mann is asking the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board to reduce his life without parole sentence for the 1983 murder of Charles Keene in Grady County.
Mann's attorneys claim he played only a minor role in the murder and argue his sentence is excessive.
The board will vote Monday on whether to approve Mann for an in-person interview to consider commuting his sentence, giving him a chance at release.
After his younger brother Wayne Thompson is released on parole later this month, Mann will be the only remaining person in prison serving time for Keene's murder. Keene was once married to Thompson and Mann's sister Vickie. Family members said Keene abused Vickie and once threatened her with a gun. Vickie tried to leave him, but Keene continued to harass her and had stolen her car on the day of the murder, according to court records.
Vickie reported Keene to police, but they did little to intervene in domestic disputes in those days, family members said.
The night of the murder, Mann, Thompson and two friends kidnapped Keene and drove him to a bridge over the Washita River.
Thompson was 15 at the time but he had a history of erratic behavior. Thompson said he'd stabbed one of his siblings before, and he knew his older brother was wary of him, even though Mann is 13 years his senior.
"It was me. I did it," Thompson said in an interview at Joseph Harp Correctional Center last year. "It bothers me a lot that my brother is still in prison because he begged me not to do it that night. He didn't turn me in, sold the gun, tried to cover it up. But he didn't kill nobody. He had no intention of killing nobody and didn't want me to."
Mann was driving the car when the group picked up Keene. He tried to stop the car and convince Thompson to let Keene go, but Thompson threatened him with a gun, forcing him to keep driving, Mann's attorneys wrote in his application for a commutation.
After shooting Keene multiple times, Thompson and his friend Bobby Glass chained him to a cement block and waded his mangled body into the icy river. Mann waited in the car until Thompson told him to drive the group back into town.
Welch said she thinks Mann's status as the older brother made him seem more culpable to prosecutors and jurors during trial.
"He got trapped in a bad situation, and he tried to help his family," Welch said. "And that's all he really tried to do. He loves his family and he would never hurt anybody."
Mann was one of four men who were originally sentenced to death for Keene's murder. His sentence was later reduced to life without the possibility of parole after a second trial.
Glass was stabbed to death weeks after arriving on death row in 1984. The brothers' other friend, Richard Jones, had his death sentence overturned and was acquitted after a second trial on testimony that he was drunk and passed out in the car during the killing. Thompson's death sentence was eventually reduced to life with the possibility of parole.
While in prison, Mann has had very few write-ups and has maintained clear conduct for almost ten years, according to his commutation application with the Pardon and Parole Board. People who have life sentences without parole are often at the bottom of the waiting list for educational opportunities, but his attorney said he's taken advantage of programs whenever possible.
Mann has worked on a prison yard crew and other various jobs, his attorney said. If his health conditions don't improve, he'll likely live out the rest of his sentence in the prison's medical unit.
The district attorney for Grady County, Jason Hicks, wrote the Pardon and Parole Board to oppose Mann's request for a commutation. Hicks did not respond to requests for comment on Mann's case.
If Mann is released from prison, his family is committed to helping him adjust to life on the outside, Welch said.
"When you have a family, you just got to take care of them," she said.
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