Contact: Beth Stone 508-584-8120
NATICK – Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz testified against the release of a man who murdered both of his parents and 11 year-old sister yesterday before the state Parole Board.
On October 9, 1993, then 15 year-old Gerard McCra, now known as Kuluwm Asar, argued with both of his parents. McCra possessed a firearm and later that same day, shot his mother, Merle McCra, 36, in the head inside their family home. McCra then went outside and executed his father, Gerard McCra, Jr., 34, and sister, Melanie, shooting them in the back of their heads inside the family car as he sat in the backseat.
In 1995, a Plymouth County jury found McCra guilty of the murders and he was sentenced to three concurrent life sentences without the possibility of parole. On June 3, 1998, the Supreme Judicial Court affirmed his convictions. In 2013, the SJC issued a decision in Diatchenko v. District Attorney for Suffolk District & Others, in which the Court determined that the statutory provisions mandating life without the possibility of parole were invalid as applied to juveniles convicted of first degree murder. The Court further decided that the juveniles must be given a parole hearing. Because McCra was 15 years-old at the time of the murders, he became parole eligible.
On May 30, 2019, McCra, first appeared before the state Parole Board for a review hearing where DA Cruz spoke in opposition to his parole. In March, 2020, the state Parole Board unanimously denied McCra’s parole. In May, 2024, McCra once again appeared before the board, and they unanimously denied his parole, and set two years to the next hearing date, which was held yesterday.
“McCra savagely executed his entire family back in 1993,” DA Cruz said. “This man has had more than three decades to consider the magnitude and wrongfulness of his heinous actions. He has also had that time to take advantage of the programming our prison system has to offer and better himself, but he has chosen not to do so. McCra was a danger in 1993, and in my opinion, he is still a danger today. This man should never be returned to the community of Rochester, the County of Plymouth, or to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and I urge the board to deny parole to McCra.”
MAY 21, 2026