Three years ago, in his role as chairman of the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons, Lt. Governor John Fetterman, the current Democrat candidate for the US Senate, voted along with the rest of the board to release a man who brutally murdered someone with a pair of garden shears.
Charles “Zeke” Goldblum was sentenced to life in prison for the first-degree murder of George Wilhelm in 1976. Goldblum and his accomplice Clarence Miller lured Wilhelm into a Pittsburgh parking garage where Goldblum stabbed him 26 times with garden shears.
While on bail, Goldblum then attempted to hire an undercover police officer to murder his accomplice who had fingered him for the murder.
Goldblum unsuccessfully appealed for clemency seven times.
In 2007, a federal appeals court rejected his request for an evidentiary hearing, ruling, “there is just too much evidence here establishing Goldblum’s guilt.
Despite all this, in 2019, Pennsylvania’s Board of Pardons, which is chaired by Fetterman in his role as Lt. Governor, voted unanimously to release Goldblum from prison. In justifying its decision, the board noted that prosecutors and the judge had since concluded that he was the accomplice, not the principal assailant.
When Goldblum was released last year, Fetterman expressed his delight that the murderer would be going home to his family. Fetterman said Goldblum was “not a threat to public safety.”
As chair of the Board of Pardons, Fetterman also voted to free prisoners convicted of first-degree murder.
In 2021, Fetterman was the only member of the board to vote in favor of freeing Wayne Covington, who pleaded guilty to first-degree murder for killing a man for money to buy heroin.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons has a history of controversial decisions.
In 1992, the board voted to commute the sentence of serial killer Reginald McFadden. Just months after he was released, McFadden went on to kill two people and kidnap and rape a third woman.
Read the full report at the Washington Free Beacon HERE.
