A man sentenced to life in prison in the killing of a Franklin resident in 1991 was released from prison on Monday, Feb. 3.
Scott Keith Quillen, 51, was convicted of second-degree murder and first-degree burglary in connection to the Oct. 18, 1991, death of Derold Ledford.
Ledford, who was 43, was a respected community member in Macon County and beyond. He owned a plant nursery and worked as a plant inspector for the North Carolina Agriculture Department, partnering with growers and nursery owners across the state’s seven westernmost counties. He was a member of the Franklin Lions Club. Ledford was survived by three children, three sisters, one brother and several nieces and nephews.
“For the past 24 years, we have fought tirelessly to keep our father’s murderer in prison. The burden was unjustly placed on us to ensure that no other family suffered our family’s fate. We are saddened and heartbroken at the news that Scott Quillen will be fully released back into society,” the Ledford children, Danya, Derrick and Deidre, stated in an email to The Franklin Press. “We are long past anger as he has been allowed weekend passes and work release for quite some time and has been allowed to have a family, father a child, and has enjoyed as an inmate in prison the freedoms our father will never have. Our father was robbed of his life and a chance to watch his three children and six grandchildren grow up. We will never be whole, and it is a travesty and absolute miscarriage of justice that his murderer will now have the ability to be free. We want to remember our father, Derold Garry Ledford, and celebrate his life and many contributions to society. He was an extraordinary man who worked hard and loved his family and, in us and his grandchildren, leaves a lasting legacy for this community.”
On Oct. 18, 1991, at about 3 a.m., Quillen forced his way through a window into Ledford’s house on Georgia Road in an attempted robbery. Ledford was shot four times, first in his bedroom then again in the hallway. It is believed the last shot was to his head after he had fallen.
There were no other family members in the home at the time.
Quillen, who was 18 at the time, was arrested on Oct. 22, 1991, and initially charged with first-degree murder. On April 29, 1993, three days before he was set to go to trial, Quillen pleaded guilty to second-degree murder rather than face trial for first-degree murder. He initially said another man pulled the trigger; however, Quillen refused to testify unless the state struck a favorable bargain, according to a release from District Attorney Ashley Welch’s office.
According to Welch, state prosecutors refused. Then District Attorney Charles Hipps told reporters he was satisfied that Quillen had pulled the trigger in Ledford’s “vicious, execution-style” killing.
Though a teen, Quillen had a criminal record that included drug and larceny criminal charges.
In 2013, a Macon County investigator saw Quillen at a Franklin gasoline station – he was being allowed weekend visits home, as part of a N.C. Department of Adult Corrections program called “Home Leave.” There was no prior notice to prosecutors or victim family members.
The subsequent outcry about Quillen helped convince the state to modify the program, which was benefiting about 148 other prisoners at the time in addition to Quillen.
During his sentencing in 1993, it was noted Quillen could become eligible for parole in 10 years.
Once Quillen became eligible for parole, Ledford’s sister Deanne Ledford Raby often wrote the Press asking the public to send letters to the parole commission.
In a letter in 2022, Raby stated, “He should serve his life, he took Derold’s life and ours. Quillen committed the crime called murder. He is around 48 years old. He could still have a good life. My brother can’t, and we can’t either.”
Ledford’s sister Jewell Ledford was out last week collecting items to take to families recovering from Hurricane Helene. When she got in her car and checked her phone, there was a photo of Quillen with news about his possible release. “My heart jerked, my throat closed up, I couldn’t move,” she said.
“My brother was a gift to many folks, and everyone is outraged with the release of Scott Quillen,” she said. “We have all been cheated – his children, my children, his siblings, family and all his friends – by a cold-hearted killer.”
The night before her brother was killed, she called to tell him she would not be coming to his house the next morning as planned, but that she would come by in a couple of days. She remembers him saying, “OK, don’t forget me.”
Had she gone to his house the next morning she could have been the one to find her brother. “Thank God, I didn’t,” she said. “It was very traumatic and something we have lived with forever.”
Ledford said Quillen “was given what Derold and his children and our family had stolen from us. … Quillen took more than one life that day.”
The Franklin Press has contacted the parole commission to ask what eligibility requirements Quillen met for release and the conditions of his release. The commission had not responded as of press time Tuesday.
“I cannot fathom why the parole commission believes this decision is acceptable,” District Attorney Ashley Welch said. “Scott Quillen has no business being out of prison after committing a violent home invasion and murder. He is a continuing threat to the community.
“Our office, and this includes my predecessors, have fought for years to keep Quillen in prison. Family members also wrote numerous letters in protest to parole commissioners and newspapers, as well as testifying in person at hearings held in Raleigh. It now appears that we and the Ledford family have lost the battle.”
After learning on Jan. 29 of the parole commission’s plan to release Quillen, the district attorney’s office called and notified the victim’s family.
“We didn’t want a family member to just randomly find out or, even worse, spot him without prior warning,” Welch said.
Darren Jackson, chair of the N.C. Post-Release Supervision and Parole Commission, wrote to Welch in an email: “Mr. Quillen will be released on Feb. 3, 2025, provided he has completed his MAPP (Mutual Agreement Parole Program, designed to prepare selected prisoners for release).”
The email from Jackson continued, “The last couple of weeks his file has been circulating our office to obtain the final signatures for his release.”
According to the email, a condition of Quillen’s release was that he avoid Macon County.
“The time Quillen has spent in prison does not come close to equaling the life he took,” said Macon County Sheriff Brent Holbrooks, whose father, Homer, was sheriff when the murder took place. “If the final stipulations of his release include he avoid Macon County, my office will do everything within our power to ensure that provision is correct.”
According to Quillen’s inmate record, his parole will run through Feb. 2, 2030.
Quillen’s release required three signatures from the four-member parole commission. As of last week, two commissioners had signed off on the release. The parole commission members are Darren Jackson (chair), Graham Atkinson, Gregory Moss Jr. and Haley Phillips. Atkinson’s term expired Jan. 31.
“Although I cannot say right now the exact day of Mr. Quillen’s release, I do imagine it will get the final sign off from our office in the very near future,” Jackson stated in the email to Welch.
Welch had hoped the commission would reconsider its decision.
“This is a prime example why the public sometimes has no faith in the justice system,” Welch said. “I am disgusted and heartbroken for this family and the citizens of North Carolina.”