OCEAN CITY — The male convicted in a brutal double homicide in Ocean City was denied parole Thursday.
Benjamin Sifrit, one half of a notorious couple that killed and dismembered a Virginia couple in a north-end condo in Ocean City on Memorial Day weekend in 2002, had a parole hearing in front of the Maryland Parole Commission at the Roxbury Correctional Facility in Hagerstown, Md. late Thursday afternoon.
The parole board denied Benjamin Sifrit’s request and he is next eligible to apply for parole in two years. Benjamin Sifrit’s mandatory release date is 2030. However, he was eligible for an earlier release based on time served and good behavior. After Thursday afternoon’s parole board hearing, which lasted an hour and 40 minutes, the board decided to keep him behind bars.
Benjamin Sifrit and his wife Erika were convicted in the deaths of victims Joshua Ford and Martha Crutchley in a north-end penthouse condo in Ocean City on Memorial Day weekend in 2002. The Sifrits lured the couple to their penthouse condo where they were shot and killed after a ruse about a missing purse.
The Sifrits dismembered the deceased Ford and Crutchley and distributed remains in dumpsters in southern Delaware, portions of which were later found in a landfill.
Erika Sifrit was found guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Ford and second-degree murder in the death of Crutchley and was sentenced to life in prison plus 20 years. Benjamin Sifrit was convicted of second-degree murder in the death of Crutchley and was sentenced to 38 years at Roxbury in Hagerstown.
This story will be updated