Deschutes County District Attorney John Hummel. (Ryan Brennecke/Bulletin file photo)

SALEM — The top prosecutor in Deschutes County told the state parole board Thursday that he believes Mark James Wilson, convicted in the notorious double murder of a Terrebonne couple during a home robbery in 1987, is capable of rehabilitation.

While the killing of Rod Houser, 53, and his wife, Lois, 49, was heinous and one of the most disturbing crimes in the county’s history, Wilson’s conduct over more than three decades in prison has been impressive, District Attorney John Hummel said.

Wilson was 18 when he shot Rod Houser 20 times with a .22-caliber rifle on the front porch of the couple’s house in the middle of the night. Co-defendant Randy Guzek shot Lois Houser with a .32-caliber revolver in the head, heart and stomach after finding her inside the home screaming at the top of a staircase.

The two then looted the house. They left the family’s Bible on Houser’s chest and cut his neck to make it look like a cult killing before fleeing.

The sole question before the parole board is whether Wilson, now 50, is capable of rehabilitation in a reasonable period of time.

“Mark Wilson has convinced me he is,” Hummel said.

Wilson, unlike Guzek, confessed to the killing soon afterward and pleaded guilty to aggravated murder and felony murder. He was sentenced in 1988 to two consecutive life terms with the possibility of parole.

The Deschutes County District Attorney’s Office promised if Wilson pleaded guilty and testified against Guzek, prosecutors would recommend life with the possibility of parole, Hummel said.

That legal obligation, coupled with state and U.S. Supreme Court findings that true life sentences for juveniles amount to cruel and unusual punishment because of their incomplete brain development, shaped his decision-making, Hummel said.

Rod Houser’s brother, daughter and nephew quickly condemned Hummel’s recommendation as “frighteningly naive.”

Doug Houser, the victim’s younger brother by 16 months, urged the three-member parole board to discount Hummel’s advice and listen instead to Ron Brown, the former Deschutes County chief deputy district attorney who prosecuted Wilson and handled his plea agreement. Brown is now Clatsop County district attorney. Hummel was elected Deschutes County district attorney in 2014 and re-elected in 2018.

“John Hummel does not speak for this family” and isn’t familiar with the case, Doug Houser said. “He’s a later-comer. I consider him to be an embarrassment to the good people of Deschutes County and to Oregon.”

The family members want the board to keep Wilson locked up for at least 40 years. They argued that was part of the plea agreement: life with the possibility of parole after a minimum of 30 years for aggravated murder to run consecutively with a minimum of 10 years for felony murder.

“The prisoner should man up and serve his time — a minimum sentence of 40 years, not 31,” Doug Houser said during a five-hour hearing at the Oregon State Correctional Institution.

“The damage you have done to my family is irreparable,” said Sue Shirley, the Housers’ daughter, as she sat just two seats to the left of Wilson to address the board. “Shame on the system that makes truth in sentencing such a moving target.”

Wilson had snorted methamphetamine with Guzek and a third friend, Donald Ross Cathay, when they approached the Houser home about 3 a.m. on June 29, 1987. They had scuttled an earlier plan to burglarize a house in nearby Bend after finding the resident home with guests.

Wilson testified Thursday that he intended only to burglarize the Houser home, never intending to kill the couple.

“I honestly did not believe they were going to be home,” he said. When Rod Houser came to the door, he remembers Houser started arguing with Guzek. He said he only has “distorted chunks of memory about what occurred between the first shot and the last shot.”

Asked why he pulled the trigger, Wilson said, “I was afraid of being arrested for attempting to burglarize their home, which in hindsight would have been the best thing.”

The Houser family and Brown, the man who prosecuted Wilson, scoffed at Wilson’s testimony, telling the board that Wilson came armed with a rifle, the couple’s cars were parked in front of the house and the porch light came on when the trio approached the house.

“They were out there specifically to kill the Housers,” Brown told the board. “Why? Because it was revenge.”

Rod Houser had previously told Guzek never to return to their house. Guzek had spent time at the home visiting with a niece who had been living with the couple.

The Deschutes County District Attorney’s Office entered into a plea agreement with Wilson “out of necessity,” Brown said. Prosecutors needed Wilson to testify against Guzek.

But at Guzek’s fourth sentencing hearing, Wilson “threw a curveball,” with his contention in court then that the killings occurred during a “burglary gone bad” and that Guzek wasn’t the ringleader, Brown said.

Wilson’s “distortion of the truth” and his minimization of the crime should raise substantial questions about his rehabilitation, Brown argued.

Wilson’s lawyer, Jason Thompson, provided an extensive record of Wilson’s accomplishments to the board. Wilson graduated from the University of Oregon in June, having taken college courses in prison and serving as a teaching assistant for the program.

For five years, he did hospice volunteer work. He’s served as a jailhouse lawyer for others and a mentor to other inmates and youths transitioning to the adult prison from the Oregon Youth Authority. He began a fundraiser and raised thousands of dollars for the children of a murdered woman he had read about. He’s had just one discipline write-up during all his time in prison.

“He’s done everything he can possibly do to better himself,” Thompson said.

Under state law, Wilson has the right to seek parole after 20 years in prison. His lawyer reminded the board members that the only question before them now is whether Wilson is capable of rehabilitation. The board will hold a separate hearing on Wilson’s release if they find him capable of rehabilitation.

“If not Mark Wilson, who? He’s not perfect. He never will be. But the standard is not perfection. The standard is not rehabilitation. The standard is capable of rehabilitation,” Thompson said. “Quite honestly, Mark Wilson, in the game of life is never going to get MVP. But he might get in the running for most improved.”

Bobbin Singh, executive director of the nonprofit Oregon Justice Resource Center, said he’s worked with Wilson since fall 2018. Wilson is considered a “special adviser” to the center, has written a “murder review hearing guide” as a resource for other inmates and is developing curriculum for a paralegal training program in prison.

He also serves on a legislative prison education work group and is helping the center develop a peer support group to formalize efforts to help young offenders transitioning from MacLaren Youth Correctional Institution to the adult prison, Singh said.

Singh said he’d hire Wilson if he could secure the money and described him as “thoughtful, compassionate, accountable, patient, committed and hardworking.”

University of Oregon professor Katie Dwyer, who was Wilson’s instructor in the university “Inside Out” prison education program, called Wilson among the top five of her more than 200 incarcerated students in a letter read aloud to the board.

If released, Wilson wants to live in Eugene and hopes to work as a legal assistant and continue his rehabilitation, he said.

Althea Seloover, a private investigator who does work for defense lawyers, said she will give Wilson a paid job with health insurance.

“I do not provide evidence of my rehabilitation and activities in any way to diminish my selfish, horrific choices and action or the pain I have caused all of you,” Wilson said.

He said he’s worked to improve his life as a way to repay the couple whose lives he and Guzek took.

“I feel like I owe this change to them,” he said. “If I don’t change, it says I don’t care about what I did to you.”

While he was high on methamphetamine at the time and struggled most of his teenage years due to sexual abuse at a younger age, Wilson said, “I am solely to blame for my incarceration. If I die in prison, that is my fault.”

Throughout the hearing, Doug Houser clasped a small wooden dog that his older brother had carved with a pocketknife during their childhood. He presented the wedding photo of his brother and sister-in-law to Wilson and parole board members.

If Wilson truly wanted to help his family, Doug Houser said, he would “stop asking for parole.”

The board members will issue a written ruling, which could take a month or more. If they deem Wilson capable of rehabilitation, they would schedule a hearing to set a release date, followed by an exit interview that would include a psychological evaluation.