No problems from Melvin at LIFE Tech
By Arthur McLean Editor

A convicted killer is on parole in Thomasville, and that has some people in town worried.

Mark Daniel Melvin was 14 years old when he was convicted of killing to elderly people in Bay Minette in 1992.

A two-part series published over the weekend in the Mobile Press-Register profiled Melvin's release on parole and the murders that led to his imprisonment.

Melvin shot Claude Pouncey, 73, three times with a shotgun and helped stab to death Pouncey's wife, Macy Pouncey, 71.

Melvin was tried as an adult, and convicted of the slayings along with his half brother, David Gordon Lee. Melvin was sentenced to life in prison plus 10 years.

But after serving just 16 years of his sentence and despite numerous objections from families and officials, Melvin was paroled from prison on Jan. 28.

Since that time, he has been in the LIFE Tech center in Thomasville, undergoing the center's rehabilitation program. If he successfully completes that program, Melvin will then be moved to Montgomery where he will work with the Alabama Equal Justice Initiative, an organization that helps ex convicts who were sentenced when they were youths and released as adults.

The community perception of the LIFE Tech center appears to be one of the center being a place for non-violent offenders. But state officials did not offer up that characterization, nor was it reported in local news outlets.

Darrell Morgan, director of the LIFE Tech center said Melvin is in the center and working through the program and that they haven't had any problems from him at this time.

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