Michael Anthony Mayola is the longest serving prisoner (58 years, 204 days) in Alabama. Sentenced to life imprisonment on November 15, 1962 for the kidnapping and murder of Larry Wayne Thomas, an 11 year old boy, and was last denied parole in 2021.
Larry Wayne Thomas, of Midfield, was a fifth-grader at Midfield Elementary School. On Aug. 2, 1962, the boy was kidnapped after watching a Little League baseball practice, according to court records. Thomas was lured into a car by a man who promised him and fellow 11-year-old Kim Canady a soft drink from a nearby Fairfield drugstore.
Canady was sent into the store to get the drink, and Mayola drove away, according to reports.
Five days later, Thomas’ body was discovered wrapped in a blanket in a shallow grave behind Mayola’s cabin outside the rural town of Oneonta.
Mayola, who had been operating a barbershop in Oneonta under the name of George R. Workman, walked into the Baltimore office of FBI agent Russell E. Vorpagle and surrendered the same day Thomas’ body was found.
“I dozed off a few times. And in the early morning, while he was still asleep, I took a .22 caliber revolver from under my pillow and shot him. I tried to make it as painless as possible,” Mayola told Vorpagle, according to court records. “I looked around and pulled the trigger.”
According to the FBI, Mayola had come to Alabama from Maryland, where he had been convicted of sodomy in Montgomery County in 1955. Mayola was sentenced to two years in prison but was paroled in 1956, according to a report in The Baltimore Evening Sun.
“I ask you not to turn this man loose back on society,” Gerald Swann, one of Mayola’s four court-appointed defense attorneys, told the Blount County jury the day before the conviction, according to The Birmingham News. “If ever a man was made or insane, it was Michael Anthony Mayola.
“He is not a raving maniac but a man mentally sick without power to control emotions.”
A jury deliberated nine hours before returning a guilty verdict...
LINK:
Michael Anthony Mayola Scheduled for Parole Hearing in January | Blount County News
Larry Wayne Thomas, of Midfield, was a fifth-grader at Midfield Elementary School. On Aug. 2, 1962, the boy was kidnapped after watching a Little League baseball practice, according to court records. Thomas was lured into a car by a man who promised him and fellow 11-year-old Kim Canady a soft drink from a nearby Fairfield drugstore.
Canady was sent into the store to get the drink, and Mayola drove away, according to reports.
Five days later, Thomas’ body was discovered wrapped in a blanket in a shallow grave behind Mayola’s cabin outside the rural town of Oneonta.
Mayola, who had been operating a barbershop in Oneonta under the name of George R. Workman, walked into the Baltimore office of FBI agent Russell E. Vorpagle and surrendered the same day Thomas’ body was found.
“I dozed off a few times. And in the early morning, while he was still asleep, I took a .22 caliber revolver from under my pillow and shot him. I tried to make it as painless as possible,” Mayola told Vorpagle, according to court records. “I looked around and pulled the trigger.”
According to the FBI, Mayola had come to Alabama from Maryland, where he had been convicted of sodomy in Montgomery County in 1955. Mayola was sentenced to two years in prison but was paroled in 1956, according to a report in The Baltimore Evening Sun.
“I ask you not to turn this man loose back on society,” Gerald Swann, one of Mayola’s four court-appointed defense attorneys, told the Blount County jury the day before the conviction, according to The Birmingham News. “If ever a man was made or insane, it was Michael Anthony Mayola.
“He is not a raving maniac but a man mentally sick without power to control emotions.”
A jury deliberated nine hours before returning a guilty verdict...
LINK:
Michael Anthony Mayola Scheduled for Parole Hearing in January | Blount County News