The parole hearing for Nathan Brooks has been delayed by the Ohio Parole Board and a new hearing has been set for the Board’s November schedule.
There was no other information released.
Brooks was arrested near the Mount Zion Cemetery along Riggs Road soon after his brother, then 16-year-old Ryan Brooks, called the police once he discovered his deceased parents in the early morning hours of Sept. 30, 1995. Once it was decided he would be tried as an adult, he was lodged in the former Belmont County Jail and then moved to the former Barnesville City Jail.
That cell has not been occupied since, and his words and artwork have never been removed from the walls.
Brooks, now 47 years old, was convicted in October 1996 of two counts of aggravated murder and he’s been behind bars in the London Correctional Institution for 29 years. A jury of six men and six women found the teenager guilty on two charges of aggravated murder and of using a firearm in the commission of a felony.
Deliberations in the double murder case took under three hours to complete, and he was then sentenced to a pair of 20-year life sentences plus an additional three years for the use of a firearm while committing the murders.
The life sentences, as per the late Belmont County Judge Charles Knapp, were to run consecutively.
Brooks has lived about 160 miles away from his hometown of Bellaire as Prisoner #A337726 at the London Correctional Institution in London, Ohio, since his arrival on October 27, 1996. He has been one of approximately 2,500 inmates in the facility that rests within Union Township in Madison County, and the double murder has become known through the years as “The Devil of Bellaire” and “Dark Prince of Belmont County”.
According to the website for the Department of Rehabilitation & Correct, though, Brooks is eligible for parole next month (August 2025) for the first time since he’s been incarcerated. According to Ohio Revised Code Section 5149.10, the Parole Board was created as a section within the Adult Parole Authority and can consist of up to 12 members.
The Parole Board, however, currently consists of nine members whose primary statutory duties include conducting release consideration hearings on all parole-eligible inmates and providing clemency recommendations to Gov. Mike DeWine, according to the state’s Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections website.
