EDWARD KARYZNO MICHAEL SAXTON TIMOTHY SPYTMA.jpg

Timothy J. Spytma, left foreground, and Michael L. Saxton in custody after the Dec. 16, 1974, murder of Phyllis Doctor, 42, in her Laketon Township home.

(MLive file photo)

MUSKEGON, MI – A 54-year-old prison inmate who, as a teenager, helped commit one of the most shocking murders in Muskegon County history is about to be freed from a life sentence.

Timothy J. Spytma, now a prisoner at Jackson's G. Robert Cotton Correctional Facility, is scheduled for release July 18.

Timothy J. Spytma in 2012

Spytma and Michael L. Saxton, both then 15, brutally murdered 42-year-old Phyllis Doctor the afternoon of Dec. 16, 1974. Saxton ended up with a lighter sentence from a different judge and was paroled in 1986.

The Michigan Parole Board recently granted Spytma parole after a hearing May 1. He'll be on supervised parole for four years, expected to live in the Ann Arbor area.

Vicious crime

The two broke into Doctor's Laketon Township home at Spytma's suggestion. They were high on barbiturates. Doctor was a neighbor of the teens and a part-time school library clerk.

Timothy J. Spytma in December 1974

Doctor came home, found the two ransacking her house for valuables and started to run away. Spytma grabbed her and hit her four or five times on the back of her head with the handle of his closed pocket knife, knocking her out, according to the Muskegon County Prosecutor's Office.

Spytma and Saxton then blindfolded Doctor and carried her to a bedroom. While Spytma was gathering valuables elsewhere, Saxton raped her and smashed her skull with a bottle and baseball bat. They wrote on her nude body in ink. Before they left, Spytma slashed her wrists with his pocket knife.

Spytma loaded television sets, a stereo, two rifles and other items into the victim's car, and they left. The pair were caught after a traffic accident in downtown Muskegon.

Reduced sentences

Both teens were tried as adults and convicted of first-degree felony murder, meaning murder committed while carrying out another felony – in this case, burglary. Both received the mandatory sentence of life in prison without chance of parole.

But in 1982, the Michigan Court of Appeals reversed both convictions. The court ruled that "burglary" under Michigan common law could only be committed at night, while Spytma and Saxton had broken into the Doctor home in the daytime.

The appeals court ordered that the convictions be reduced to second-degree murder and that the defendants be resentenced.

Saxton got a sentence of 20 to 40 years and, with "good time credit" – allowed at that time -- was paroled in 1986 after just 12 years behind bars.

Spytma got a life sentence from another judge. By law, the sentence had to allow the possibility of parole at some future date.

Parole vetoed, then granted

Every five years starting in 1988, the parole board looked at Spytma's case and declined even to schedule him for a public parole hearing.

Then, in 2008, the board voted for the first time to take a "preliminary interest" in parole, starting a process that could have led to a public hearing in 2009.

But then-Muskegon County 14th Circuit Judge James M. Graves Jr., the successor to the sentencing judge, instead exercised his power to veto parole for Spytma, preventing a public hearing from taking place. Graves based his decision on the "particularly heinous nature of his crime," he wrote in a letter to the board.

The issue came up again five years later. This time the current successor judge, Muskegon County Circuit Judge Timothy G. Hicks, opted not to veto Spytma's parole, instead allowing the issue to go to the public hearing stage.

That May 1 hearing eventually led to the parole board's decision to free Spytma.

In a written opinion, Hicks called his decision not to halt the parole process "among the most difficult decisions I have ever been asked to make as a circuit judge." He said he met with the victim's children and reviewed photos of the crime scene, and he agreed that the circumstances of the crime called for a veto.

But other circumstances, Hicks wrote, caused him to decide otherwise. Among them:

Spytma, the judge wrote, accepts responsibility for what he did and shows appropriate remorse.

Spytma's prison record is "very good."

The U.S. Supreme Court in 2012 held that mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juveniles were unconstitutional because "the teenage brain is different," a principle Hicks took into account, although that ruling didn't directly apply to Spytma's case.

Spytma has a home and job waiting for him more than 100 miles from Muskegon County.

Many judges in the 1980s, when Sptyma was resentenced, expected "lifers" to be eligible for parole after about 15 to 20 years.

Saxton, who was at least equally culpable, has been out of prison since 1986 and off parole since 1990.

Hicks wrote that, in case parole was granted, he expected the Michigan Department of Corrections to monitor Spytma closely and return him swiftly to prison if he commits any violations.

The victim's children

Spytma's parole came over the objections of the victim's two children, the Muskegon County Prosecutor's Office and the Michigan Attorney General's Office.

At the parole hearing, Raymond J. Kosztrzewa, chief trial attorney for the Muskegon prosecutor, read into the record letters from Phyllis Doctor's son and daughter. Both declined to be interviewed for this story.

Lawrence J. Doctor, her son, was a 17-year-old high-school senior when he came home from school and discovered his mother's brutalized body.

In his letter, Doctor wrote of how his and his sister's "Leave It to Beaver" dream life was shattered that day. Describing the gruesome scene he stumbled on, he wrote, "This is a picture that will live with me the rest of my life! The loss of my mother devastated us as well as so many other loved ones. The community was horrified at the brutality and heinous degree of the murder!"

Doctor argued that he doesn't believe prison rehabilitates most inmates or prepares them for life outside and said he believes Spytma remains a danger to society.

Linda Evans, the victim's daughter, 19 at the time of the crime, wrote of how – just one day earlier – she had told her happy mother that Linda's boyfriend had given her a "promise ring." The two later married and had children and eventually grandchildren, but Phyllis Doctor wasn't there to enjoy any of it or "give me advice on raising the perfect child," Evans wrote.

Kostrzewa also submitted a brief on behalf of the prosecutor's office.

Kostrzewa described the circumstances of the crime, the legal background of Spytma's reduced conviction and his record of major misconduct tickets in prison.

The prosecutor called the crime "one of the most heinous and brutal murders in Muskegon County history. ...

"In 1974, Timothy J. Spytma was responsible for sending shock waves through a family and the Muskegon community which are still felt and remembered this day," Kostrzewa wrote. "The resulting damage is not reversible."

John S. Hausman covers courts, prisons, the environment and local government for MLive Muskegon Chronicle. Email him at jhausman@mlive.com and follow him on Twitter.