In September 1999, John Paul Counts was sentenced to 30 years in prison for murdering an 18-year-old Shallotte woman in 1994.
But on Friday, July 11, after serving less than nine years of his prison sentence, Counts is scheduled to be paroled.
Counts, 40, pleaded guilty to the second-degree murder of Amy Frink, and began his sentence in the N.C. Department of Correction on Sept. 14, 1999.
On June 23, 1994, Amy Frink was driving from her home near Shallotte to Cherry Grove, S.C., to visit her sister, but never made it there.