The Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles held 38 parole hearings June 24, granting 10 paroles and denying 28. Among those denied parole is a Falkville man who was convicted of killing his brother with a clawhammer in 2009.

Billy Wayne Hopkins Sr. pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to life in prison by then Morgan County circuit judge Sherrie Paler in November 2010. Hopkins is serving his sentence at the St. Clair Correctional Facility in Springville.

According to a 2010 article in the Decatur Daily, authorities said the brothers were drinking and argued the day Elbert Hopkins was killed. When sheriff’s deputies arrived at the residence, they found the victim lying unconscious on the floor and Billy Hopkins drunk, according to reports. They also found a clawhammer believed to be the murder weapon.

Elbert Hopkins later died at The University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital. The cause of death was severe head injury, authorities said.

Following the June hearing, Hopkins was denied parole because he failed to complete rehabilitation programs and showed no effort toward reentering society, according to information provided by the Alabama Department of Corrections. Two members of the parole board also cited that releasing Hopkins would “depreciate the seriousness of the crime and show a disrespect for the law.”

Hopkins was first imprisoned in 1969, according to ADOC records, when he served nine months of a one-year sentence for burglary in the second degree. He then served multiple abbreviated sentences in 1978, 1990, 2001 and 2004 before being convicted and sentenced in 2010 for the slaying of his brother.

He was previously convicted of attempted arson, sexual abuse in Madison County and two felony DUIs.

Hopkins faced another murder charge in 1991 – while serving time for sexual abuse – in the 1973 shooting death of Morris K. Edmonson Jr., who owned Kay’s

Gulf Service Station in Morgan County. A judge ruled the evidence in that instance was insufficient to try Hopkins, and the case was dismissed.