Double Murderer Jeffrey Allen Maria Walks Free After Four Decades in Prison

After forty years behind the bars of a California prison, a convicted double-murderer has been set free — less than two weeks after he was granted parole.

Jeffrey Allen Maria, 61, was released from prison on Monday. It is said that he will now be living in the Sacramento area.

Maria was a teenager in 1979 when he and three others ambushed pharmacist Philip Ranzo, 30, and his wife, Kathryn, who was 29 and owned a beauty shop. The four tortured, raped, and murdered the couple.

Maria had been serving two life sentences before he was found suitable for parole this spring. The final decision to release him was made last month.

Special prosecutor Beth De Jong called Maria's release a failure of the state's criminal justice reform, CBS News Sacramento reported.

"It's torturing them, it's using pickaxes on their eyes, hogtying them, raping them. It's not a simple youthful offender crime. They are sophisticated," De Jong said. 

Marty Spears, Ronald Anderson and Darren Lee were also convicted of first-degree murder for killing the couple at their Modesto home.

The four were re-sentenced during the 1980s to two life sentences with the possibility of parole.

Maria had been granted parole four times prior to this, but former California Governor Jerry Brown reversed the decision.

Gov. Gavin Newsom did not deny Maria's parole, leaving the final decision in the hands of California's parole board.

CBS13 in Sacramento received a statement from the family of Phillip and Kathy Ranzo, saying "our pain will never end" and that Newsom "has opened the gates of prisons, and communities are no longer safe."

The station reports that Maria's wife of 14 years, Michaele Beebe-Maria, said he has expressed remorse for his actions four decades ago.

Maria will be on parole for the next three years. He has been ordered to have no contact with the families of his victims.