Associated Press

OLYMPIA – Washington Gov. Jay Inslee has overturned a decision to grant parole to man who killed three tavern workers during a robbery in 1980.

Timothy Pauley was 21 when he and associate Steven Smith robbed the Barn Door Tavern in King County, tying up three women and two men, forcing the men into a walk-in cooler and executing them with a revolver. One of the women was strangled by a cord used to tie her to a post.

Despite opposition from the victims’ families, the state’s Indeterminate Sentence Review Board last month unanimously found Pauley rehabilitated and eligible for parole, following a hearing at which he noted he had completed years of counseling for drug and alcohol abuse and for post-traumatic stress disorder for a workplace injury he suffered before the killings.

Pauley told the board he panicked during the killings; didn’t know why he shot the men, Loren Dowell and Robert Pierre; and that he wanted to be known for something more than his horrible crime.

But in an order released by the governor’s office on Friday, Inslee said he did not believe Pauley had shown appropriate remorse. Pauley did not apologize to the victims’ family members, who attended the online parole hearing in March, nor refer to the victims by name, Inslee noted.

“For Mr. Pauley’s rehabilitation to be complete, he must engage in serious introspection to ultimately achieve and affirmatively demonstrate both a full acceptance of his responsibility and remorse,” Inslee wrote.

The governor returned the case to the sentence review board for further proceedings.