Russell Colwell, who murdered 14-year-old Patrizia Mastroianni inside a Korah Collegiate bathroom in 1987, is appealing his latest denial from the Parole Board
Russell Colwell has spent most of his existence in prison, nearly 37 years and counting. Measured in days, that’s more than 13,000. His victims — the many people who loved Patrizia Mastroianni, and were forced to suddenly live without her — have served a parallel sentence, equal in time but infinitely worse.
“I ask myself: ‘How can a man who commits such a crime ever be considered to let free?’” she continued. “Our family are the ones who deserve the freedom of peace of mind knowing that Russell will remain in jail for his entire life.” Roznik and Palumbo are both very private people. Although their sister’s horrific murder made national headlines at the time — and has never been forgotten around here — they do their best to avoid the spotlight. They only agreed to speak to SooToday, and to share Roznik’s full statement to the Parole Board, because the community has been so supportive and they want people to know what’s happening.
Colwell was ultimately convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. But for Mastroianni’s shattered family, the end of the criminal trial was just the start of their life sentence. “We are given no option to do anything different,” says Palumbo, now 48. “This is what we have to do. It’s horrifying to think that he can be released because the risk level in our eyes is so very high.”
“You planned to sexually assault a female and loitered around your old high school waiting for an opportunity,” the board wrote in that 2021 decision, describing Mastroianni as “an innocent person in the wrong place at the wrong time.” “I was so angry,” Palumbo said. “It was another re-victimization. It’s ridiculous that we have to rearrange our lives to travel there for the hearing. Basically, we have to go and fight for our sister because they’re running out of room and he’s done his time — so what else?”
“We got an email indicating that offenders may be present at the front gates when we arrive, so we were obviously heightened because of that,” Palumbo says. “And when we pulled up, we saw it was completely open concept. We had to walk through the parking lot and into the building, and there were offenders all over the place identified with blue shirts, cleaning the yard or mopping the floors.”
The board members also made a point of acknowledging the dozens of emails they received from people back in the Sault. There were so many arriving every day that an employee had to be assigned to process them all.
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