Georgia Marshall, left, poses with her duaghter, Linda Tompkins in this 1992 photo, which was taken several months before Tompkins was murdered.
Georgia Marshall and her family undergo a wide range of emotions before attending a Nevada Parole Board hearing every three years.
For the seventh time since 1994, the Marshall family, friends and members of the law enforcement community attend a parole hearing for Michael D. Regan, a Fallon man who murdered Marshall’s daughter, Linda Tompkins, 23 years ago in May 1992. Regan’s parole hearing is set for Monday at 8:15 a.m. in Carson City.
“It makes all the difference in the world to go to the parole hearings,” she said. “I’m not doing it out of hate. I don’t want another family going through it.”
Marshall, though, said attending the last parole hearing was too intense for her because of her age and health. Instead, the family will be there. As she does every three years, Marshall asks for letters of support to keep Regan in prison.
District Attorney Art Mallory said his chief deputy DA Lane Mills will attend the hearing.
“This case is an important one for us because it was a cold-blooded homicide,” Mallory said. “We’ll do anything we can to keep him in jail. We’ve been going to the hearings since he has been incarcerated.”
Likewise, retired Fallon Police Capt. Ray Dolan, who investigated the murder, said he attends the hearing every three years.
“They used to allow the investigator to speak but not any more,” Dolan said.
He said Mills will be allowed to speak to the board. Dolan said “Linda didn’t deserve to die.”
“Mike Regan should never be paroled as far as I am concerned,” Dolan added. “He is a threat to the community.”
The memories of that 1992 incident are still vivid today for both Tompkins’ sister, Lynne Davis, and her mother.
“He was jealous of her because she owned her own home and owned her own car,” said Davis, while her mother clutched a photo of Tompkins, who was 30 years old at the time of her death..
Marshall worries about the parole hearing and the inevitable thought of the board possibly releasing Regan from prison. For what Regan did to her daughter, Marshall is persistent that he remains behind bars.
“He’s going to hurt someone, and it’s always a female,” she said.
Davis feels the same way.
“It was not a crime of passion,” Davis said. “When he drank, he became more violent.”
Davis claims Regan, when he was 17 years old, allegedly broke his father’s neck. At one time, Davis alleges Regan tried to strangle her on Christmas night 1991.
“He had me up over the freezer,” she said. ”He would have killed me if it wasn’t for my nephew.”
Davis, like her mother, is adamant Regan stay in prison. She is fearful for her life if he doesn’t.
“If he is let out, he will kill someone. He’ll come after me,” Davis said.
The 80-year-old Marshall relives her daughter’s murder often. Regan confessed to second-degree murder in 1994 and was sent to the Nevada State Prison. He is now housed at the Lovelock Correctional Center, the same institution where former football player O.J. Simpson is jailed.
Marshall said Regan dated her daughter for six months before her death, three of which he spent in jail for one crime or another. She adamantly denies the two were living together at the time of the murder.
“They split up several weeks before,” she said. “She never got to know him. More so, she didn’t want to know him.”
Marshall recounted what her daughter had told her in 1992 after they broke up. Police officers picked Regan up and were going to take him home, but he gave them Tompkin’s address.
“She felt sorry for him,” Marshall recounted.
Regan pleaded to stay with Tompkins for three days until he could move into another house. Both Marshall and her daughter did not like the idea, and Marshall specifically soured on the idea because Regan also had another girlfriend in Tonopah whom he wanted to marry.
What was supposed to be three days turned into five. Tompkins never saw another day after that. Marshall and her family, though, believed Regan strangled Tompkins when she came home from work and found him drinking and using drugs. Eight days later, two men hunting frogs found a decomposed body in an irrigation ditch near the Austin Highway and Wildes Road east of Fallon. Regan eluded police for months.
Her death not only affected the Marshall family but also her friends and colleagues in the military. For four years, Tompkins served in the U.S. Air Force as a weapons specialist, and before Desert Shield/Desert Storm began in late summer 1990, Tompkins transferred to the Nevada Air Guard’s 152nd Tactical Reconnaissance Group, the “High Rollers.” She also worked full-time at the Kennecott Rawhide Mine an hour southeast from Fallon.
Because of the urgency of receiving letters, the Nevada Parole Board said it is faster to fax or email letters. The fax number is 775-687-6736, and the email address is info@parole.nv.gov. Letters may be sent to Nevada Parole Board, 1677 Hot Springs Road, Suite A, Carson City, NV 89711.
On all correspondence, refer to Michael Regan, No. 41965.