NILES — It’s been 44 years since her brother’s death, but Joanne Robbins still vividly remembers hearing the news for the first time, saying it’s something she’ll never forget.

“I was in high school, I was 17 years old, and my guidance counselor came down to the band room to get me, and I didn’t think too much of it because we started to talk about college and post-graduation life,” Robbins said. “(I) came into the principal’s office and there were detectives there from my brother’s — the police department, Niles Police Department — and they told me something happened to my brother.”

“They said, ‘he didn’t make it.’ He was shot and murdered,” she added.

Robbins said her family had to find a “new normal” after learning that her brother, Niles Police Officer John Utlak, 26 at the time, was shot and killed Dec. 8, 1982 — which is why she’s urging a parole board to deny the parole of Fred Joseph Jr., who is up for parole again in July.

According to Block Parole Inc., which documented the case, Utlak told his partner he was scheduled to meet informants, Joseph, 17, and Randy Fellows, 18, in a Mineral Ridge parking lot.

The documentation states Joseph went to speak with Utlak, pulled a gun and shot the officer in the head as he approached him. He and Fellows robbed Utlak of $400, a watch, his service revolver, a two-way radio and a shotgun, leaving him to die in the snowy parking lot.

The documentation states Joseph and Fellows were arrested in Wyoming, and a jury found Fellows guilty of aggravated murder that year.

A second jury found Joseph guilty of one count of aggravated murder, and both men were given a sentence of 30 years to life in prison.

Joseph, now 60, had an attempt at parole that was denied in 2021 by the Ohio Adult Parole Authority, with this year being his next opportunity at obtaining it, as he was a juvenile offender.

Joseph would be eligible for release Sept. 1 if the parole board looks favorably on his case.

His accomplice, Fellows, now 61, had an attempt denied in 2022; his next opportunity will come in 2032.

Niles City Council President Doug Sollitto, a high school classmate of Joseph who submitted an affidavit to the parole board asking it to keep Joseph in prison then, recalls the conversation he had with Joseph.

Sollitto said he ran into Joseph as a corrections officer at the Trumbull Correctional Institute, a medium-security prison in Leavittsburg, adding that Joseph became confrontational, but there was no real use of force — just idle threats.

“We were having a conversation, and he admitted, because I said, ‘Fellows and, who did it?’ and he said, ‘Fellows didn’t have the balls to do that,'” Sollitto said. “He said, ‘I’m the one who took that b– out,’ referring to Utlak.”

“And he says, ‘They can’t keep me in here forever; and when they do, I’m going to sit across the street from that police station and wait for them to walk out,’ and he took his finger like, like I said in another interview — like a gun — ping, ping, ping, ‘and then they can take me right back to where I left.'”

Robbins says she’ll meet with the parole board on June 15, urging them to deny Joseph’s parole yet again.

“He has not been rehabilitated. He hasn’t even acknowledged what he has done, and so he’s in maximum security — I know that he is,” Robbins said.

Robbins says she also worries about Utlak’s partner, Bob Ludt, Vienna’s former police chief, who spent 35 years with Niles and was an undercover drug investigator for 18 years with them.

“He has met with me, or he has met with the parole board with me every single time; he’s always been by us,” Robbins said. “This is the first year now, this is another thing that’s kind of disheartening to me, is that I was told only immediate family can speak now.”

Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins, who was part of the investigative and prosecution team that put both Joseph and Fellows behind bars, was one of two prosecutors who tried Joseph in a Trumbull County Common Pleas Court jury trial.

Watkins also wrote a letter in 2021 voicing his “firm and total opposition” of Joseph’s release.

Watkins said Friday that he’s writing another letter to the parole board expressing his strong belief that it’s within the parole board’s discretion, or that new rules need to be changed back, so Ludt can be heard in this matter.

“We’re dealing with the savage murder of a police officer on duty, and it was a planned execution of a police officer — this is the worst of the worst murders of police, right?” Watkins said.

Watkins said the evidence in the case showed Ludt to be a possible target because they worked drugs together, so he should be heard and “definitely” be allowed to accompany Robbins.

Watkins noted Joseph’s behavioral history, which he cited in his 2021 letter, noting him to be “very dangerous” and a sociopath.

“He stole from his father, the other guy (Fellows) takes his mother’s car — they were going to go on a killing spree. By the grace of God, other people didn’t die,” Watkins said. “We need to wake up.”

Watkins said he thanks Sollitto for adding to a record of misconduct and dangerous behavior from those who took Utlak’s life.

“His family is not going to ever stop fighting for justice, but I’m here as the prosecutor, and the judges in this matter and the juries in this matter all said this guy shouldn’t be on the streets,” Watkins said.

Watkins said they couldn’t get the death penalty for Joseph because of his age, but noted the law was what it is and continued to emphasize the importance of the victims being present, in any future changes to the law.

As for their “new normal,” Robbins said Joseph and Fellows made her an only child because it was just the two of them, adding that it was hard on her mom, too, throughout the years.

“My wedding, even though it was a wonderful occasion, we had a void because my brother wasn’t there,” Robbins said. “When I had my children — same thing, I thought, ‘Oh gosh, my brother’s not here.”

Robbins said her daughters know Utlak as “Uncle Johnny” and know so much about him, as if he were present throughout their entire lives.

“I am glad that I have so many cherished memories, but they’re not enough, because I only had them for 17 years (of) my life,” Robbins said. “And that’s like nothing. I look at pictures and they’re just so old, and they are, and they stop at him being 26 — and that’s also a heartache.”