A sister's pain
The sister of a slain state police sergeant responds to the musings of her brother's killer upon the woman's release from prison
Northern Express
FEB. 3, 2018
Michigan State Police Sergeant Melvin “Paul” Holbrook was murdered by his wife in 2009; his sister recalls years before his death she believed his wife was capable of killing him.
Meleen Froman said she wants to speak about Joni Holbrook following a Jan. 15 Northern Express feature in which Holbrook talks about the challenges she’s faced following her release from prison in 2017. She served half of a 15-year sentence after pleading guilty in Benzie County to second-degree murder.
Froman believes her estranged former sister-in-law should have received a more severe sentence. She said that despite being able to convince a judge that she deserved a light sentence because she’d been a domestic abuse victim, she believes Joni Holbrook was adept at convincing people she was something she was not.
The Express reached out to Froman prior to the publication of the Joni Holbrook interview, but she declined to participate. Now she’s come forward to speak; Froman answered questions via phone from her home in Oklahoma.
Northern Express: You said that you wanted to tell how it feels to be on the other side, to be the one who receives the call that your brother has been killed. How does that feel?
Meleen Froman: I can honestly tell you when I heard my husband say the words that she had shot him and that he was dead, I kind of, for lack of a better word, I blacked out. I just remember hearing somebody scream. You know, “Why would she do this? Why would she do this?” And it took a few seconds to realize it was actually my own voice I was hearing, because I just couldn’t believe that that had just happened. Just hearing my husband say those words to me.
I had just arrived at work. I’m a nurse. I worked at a cancer center at that point. One of my co-workers was the one who answered the phone and was told to take me somewhere private to take the phone call and she was with me when he told me. It was just, I don’t know that there are words to describe what that feels like. To actually hear those words, when you are that close to somebody, because my brother and I had a very, very close relationship, because we’d been through so much over the last five, six years, because my father had had Alzheimer’s. The two of us had definitely been the ones who took care of everything. He was my go-to guy. My confidante. Honestly one of my best friends that I’ve had in my lifetime.
Express: I know that the family never felt like justice was served in this case, that you all believe that Joni got away with pretending to be something that she wasn’t. Have you ever wavered in that conviction? And if not, what makes you so certain?
Froman: No. What makes me so certain is that my husband and my children and I came to Michigan every summer. It was something that we just always did. It was our vacation. We always spent part of the week with Paul and his family and then we went to my other brother’s house. And I was thinking about this last night, and talking even with my other brother about this. I don’t know that I ever recall a time when we were up there when some kind of verbal altercation did not take place between the two of them, and she was the one that was always the aggressor in the conversations. My brother never wanted to argue. To say that she yelled profanities would be an understatement. Some of the stuff I wouldn’t repeat. I’ve watched him walk away from her, trying to just end it, and she would follow him into another room and it would continue. And it was not just some isolated incident. This is something we saw every time we were up there. To say that she was just this shell who never stood up for herself doesn’t sit well with me.
Express: How do you reconcile how a conservative, law enforcement-friendly judge heard the evidence that your brother abused his wife for years and found that the abuse mitigated the murder?
Froman: She was very good at manipulating people, and very, very good at playing sick and pitiful, because she would do that down here. She would come down here, she would lay in bed all day – she had a headache, she didn’t feel good. But then the minute it was time to go, one time we went to see Rascal Flats, one time we went to see a country performer named Darryl Worley, she just jumped out of bed and was ready to go. So I watched her manipulate for years. And also, she worked for the court system for a long time. I don’t think this was something that she just decided to do on the spur of the moment.
Express: The conversation I had with Joni was about how she is struggling to move on. I feel like you are also struggling.
Froman: That’s why I find it ironic that she reaches out to the press. If you want to move on, then put it behind you and move on. Why are we digging this up again now? Why are we doing this? We just want to let it be. I can’t go back and fix what she did. I can’t undo it. I can’t undo what happened in court. I can’t undo any of it. All I can do is move forward with my life and be left in peace. But then she reaches out to bring this back to the public all over again, and it’s just like somebody ripping open an old wound. And that’s the reason I reached out to you, because I am so tired of her being the only person that gets the opportunity to say, ‘Oh, poor pitiful me.’ It’s not that I am feeling sorry for myself, or for my family, because I will tell you, we are a family of great faith. Great faith. I also know that my brother was a man of faith. I don’t doubt that my brother was good. My brother is better now than he ever was. I know this. I know this for a fact.
Northern Express
JAN. 13, 2018
https://www.northernexpress.com/news/feature/what-now/
Joni Ankerson Holbrook is back home in northern Michigan after serving half of a 15-year maximum prison term for the murder her husband, Paul Holbrook, a state police sergeant.
The 56-year-old was sentenced to six to 15 years in prison for second-degree murder. She served 7 ½ years.
Holbrook received a lighter-than-normal sentence in 2009 because her attorney, Jesse Williams, persuaded a Benzie County judge that years of domestic abuse mitigated the killing. It didn’t excuse it, but she maintained that the violence she believed she couldn’t escape needed to be taken into account. (Paul Holbrook’s family maintained at her sentencing that the abuse never happened.)
Nonetheless, Holbrook was released in April to a Benzonia motel. She’s since moved to Traverse City to live with her mother.
Returning to the world has been a struggle. Holbrook, who spent a career in professional office jobs and worked in district court before she became a felon, now works manual labor in a factory. She would like to find work to help victims of domestic violence, but so far she’s found no opportunities.
Prison was horrible, she said, and she vows never to go back, but she’s found adjusting to life as a convicted murderer released from prison also poses incredible challenges. But she said the whole experience has made her a tougher person.
“I had a friend of mine not long ago tell me, ‘Oh, people don’t change,’” she said. “Well, I want that person to know, they do change. I’ve changed tremendously. I stick up for myself. I don’t apologize. You can ask me any question you want, I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
The Northern Express sat down with Holbrook and talked about her experiences in prison and the challenges she’s faced since she got out.
Northern Express: What do you want to say about your time in prison?
Joni Holbrook: Prison is like a subsidiary of hell. It’s awful. It’s horrid. Living with 2,300 women of all ages shapes, sizes, races, education, lack thereof, morals, manners, lack thereof. Very interesting. When I got to prison I weighed 101 pounds. I was so wrecked, so broken.
Express: I recall the mugshot of you that was in the media around the time of your trial, and I saw you MDOC mugshot from just prior to your release on parole. You looked much healthier, much better at the end of your stay in prison.
Holbrook: A lot healthier because, as my dad always said, you better bend over and pull up your bootstraps because you’re in for it. It was nothing I was ever prepared for. I mean, obviously, the point where I got to where I thought killing my husband was the only way for me to get out, that’s how damaged and broken domestic violence made me. And thinking that that was okay now shocks me, but it was the only way I knew then, how to get away. So, when you get to prison, you better decide real quick if you’re going to stick up for yourself, learn how to say no, or just be a victim all over again.
Express: And you learned how to stick up for yourself.
Holbrook: Yes. I certainly did. I’m nobody’s victim. I learned how to say no. I learned how to be a real bitch, actually. And I think at that point I was able to do that because of the decision I made to free myself by taking his life. Yeah.
Express: Did prison do anything to help you prepare for coming out of prison?
Holbrook: Yeah. I mean one thing, there’s nothing like being in a room all alone. When I first got there I was in the Reception and Guidance Center, and I was in a room all by myself for 60 days or longer. And there’s nothing like being in a room alone with nothing but four walls and your thoughts. No noise. No officers screaming over the intercom. You have to ask to go to the bathroom. A lot of alone time. A lot of thinking time. I was able to dig really deep and just take things out and look at ’em and realize a lot about myself.
Express: After six years, you were up for parole, and the first time you went before the board you were denied. Why was that?
Holbrook: I remember sitting in the interview with the parole man, and my sister was there with me, and we talked about the abuse, and my parole decision came back as denied, and I got flopped — that’s continued — for 18 months, based on the fact that the parole board thought that I blamed the victim and his family and showed little or no concern for them and that I would actually be at risk to reoffend, which shocked me. I mean I’ve never been in trouble in my life.
Express: What about the victim in your case? You’ve described yourself as a victim, and said you want to stand up and work on behalf of victims. Is that fair? How do you defend that to Paul Holbrook’s family today, who might say that since you took away their loved one, you don’t deserve that chance?
Holbrook: Well, he was a victim, obviously. He was victim of a horrific, terrible crime. Was I a victim of over 10 years of horrific abuse — mental, physical, sexual, emotional? Absolutely. I mean, and the caveat to that is the fact that he was a police officer. He held all the power, control, authority. And so I let him do all of that to me. I was weak enough to let him groom me and fall into the trap. Am I a victim? Absolutely. And I will never stop saying that. I’m not a victim any more. It will never happen again.
Express: So you were out in April. You found yourself in Benzie County in a motel. What was that first week like?
Holbrook: The first week, actually, I felt really free. I was in a room for the first time by myself. I had my own bathroom. I had my own space. I was able to see my family, my kids, which was awesome. Realizing that I was finally able to make my own decisions, I didn’t have to ask permission to do anything. I didn’t have to check in with anybody. … When I got home finally, that freedom and that realization that I was able to make my own choices was huge and very freeing.
Express: But then you found that once you were able to make your own choices, you didn’t have very many options.
Holbrook: Right. And I understand that. I am a convicted felon. I bet I’ve applied for 50 jobs, ’cause I have 28 years’ experience in the law. I worked at district court for close to 10 years, all through the ’90s. … In the other years, I worked for attorneys — clients, customer-service related, I like to work with people. But say you’re a prospective employer, and you get my resume and you think, ‘Oh, this doesn’t look bad, she might be a good fit for the office.’ So you call the first person that I’ve worked for in the past and their response to you is, ‘Oh, I didn’t even know she was out of prison yet.’ I mean, do you bring that out right away? Do you wait on that? The first thing people do, prospective employers right now, is check your record, and when they see that I’m a felon and then that I have a murder charge, most people don’t look further than that.
Express: So what are you doing right now?
Holbrook: I am working in a factory right now. I work different jobs there. I work 7 to 3:30, I’m working on the line some days. I’m working manual hard labor, clean up. I actually broke one of my ribs a couple weeks ago at work. And I can do that. I am really strong. I can do a job like that. But I’m only making $10 an hour. And I understand people’s reluctance, but I just wish people would talk to me. I wish someone would give me a chance. I believe I am a wealth of information, as far as the experience in the law, being a victim of domestic violence, being in prison … I want to work as an advocate. I want to be the voice for victims.
Express: You mentioned you’ve gone to the Women’s Resource Center, and you’ve tried to work as an advocate there.
Holbrook: Yeah, when I first got out of prison, I worked through my parole agent in Benzie County. I had an employment counselor. And he got me a job at the Women’s Resource Center thrift store, part time, 20 hours per week. I was actually working for them, but it was through the AARP foundation. I couldn’t live on that. … So I was working there, and I wanted so bad for the Women’s Resource Center to hire me, which they had the choice of doing but apparently didn’t have the capability money-wise. I felt a lot of that was political. I really felt like because of who my victim was.
Express: But, do you have any training in social work?
Holbrook: No, I don’t. I have no training in social work, and it was made clear to me — I don’t have a degree, I don’t have a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree. Which is true.
Express: Is that something that you’d like to do?
Holbrook: Yeah, it’s something I’d like to do. But I believe I have a master’s degree in domestic violence. I believe I probably know more about it than anybody who’s been schooled in it. I respect people that have degrees and learned whatever they’ve learned, but if you’ve never experienced it, you’ve never been through it, I would rather talk to someone like me rather than someone with a degree hanging on the wall, and that’s just how I feel about it. … I’m so strong. I know exactly what I went through. I know exactly what I did, why I did it. My feelings on that now are completely different. Because I’ve had all this time to reflect on it.
Express: How are your feelings different?
Holbrook: I just am shocked that I was ever in that place. Shocked that he was able to get me to where I thought killing him and taking his life was the only way out. But I know for a fact, and I’ve said this from the beginning: I took his life to save my own, because he was going to kill me, and he told me how he was going to kill me, and I believed him.
This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.
