Convicted Rogers Co. Murderer Up For Parole

Betty Reynolds was killed Nov. 7, 1985, while filling in at the family convenience store.

Friday, March 13th 2009, 5:00 pm

By: News On 6


By Lori Fullbright, The News On 6

ROGERS COUNTY, OK -- A Rogers County family is trying to keep a murderer in prison.

Betty Reynolds was killed Nov. 7, 1985, while filling in at the family convenience store. She worked for only an hour and 12 minutes so her husband Don could watch their son's basketball game.

When father and son returned, they found her barely clinging to life, a memory forever burned into the mind of an 11-year-old boy.

"She was slumped behind the counter, blood everywhere," said Shane Reynolds, the victim's son and a captain with the Rogers County Sherriff's Department. "Could tell she'd been shot. The window was busted behind her, $2 was on the register and the rest of it was open."

The other Reynolds children were 14 and 2 at the time.

Just 40 hours earlier, Dale Hylock killed a woman in a robbery in Wisconsin. He ended up in Claremore and killed Betty with the same gun, then surrendered in Colorado four days later, the murder weapon still in his car.

"Calls from a rest area and says, ‘I want to turn myself in. I killed a lady in Wisconsin and in Oklahoma,'" Shane said.

Hylock served eight years in Wisconsin and began serving his Oklahoma sentence in 1994, after pleading guilty and getting life.

Fifteen years later, he is up for parole, even though he showed no remorse.

"A judge asked him, ‘Did you kill Betty Reynolds on Nov. 7, 1985?' and he said yes, and the judge said, ‘Did you mean to kill her?' and he said, ‘I guess I did. I shot her twice,'" Shane said.

It's clear from photos of flowers from the funeral, how well loved the Reynolds were and are. They have written letters to the parole board and hope others will, too.

Shane says his sister said it best about why Hylock should not have the luxury of getting out: "You were handed a life sentence and at the same time, we were handed one. We don't have the luxury of going before a board and saying, ‘Fifteen years later, we've been good, so here's your mom back.' It doesn't work that way."

Hylock's parole hearing is March 24.

Now a father, Shane has a new appreciation for what his own father went through, having to tell three young children their mother was murdered and then raising them alone.

Contact the state parole board:

120 N. Robinson Ave., Suite 900W

Oklahoma City, OK 73102

Phone: (405) 602-5863

Fax: (405) 602-6437

receptionist@ppb.state.ok.us

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