Not forgotten: Heath family to oppose parole for killer

Jo Jo Heath

BY JEFF OLIVER
For the MV Independent

Seventeen years ago, Kim Heath sat in a Washington County Courtroom and heard Jason Benner admit to murdering her brother, Jo Jo Heath, over some crack cocaine Benner was trying to get from the one-time local and professional football player in the late hours of Dec. 30, 2002.
Next week, she will be trying to impress the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole via a Zoom meeting to keep her brother’s murderer behind bars.
Benner, 46, of Charleroi, was sentenced to 18-to-36 years in prison for the murder of Heath, then 45. Benner stabbed Heath 26 times in the victim’s car outside Benner’s home on Lower Crest Avenue and then dumped his body near a creek in Fallowfield Township. Benner left Heath’s vehicle near his body.
Benner later went back to the scene to take jewelry from Heath and retrieve the murder weapon. Those items were later recovered by state police, who were alerted to Benner’s involvement by a trail of blood leading from Heath’s body to Benner’s home.
Benner is currently housed in the state correctional facility at Huntingdon.
Benner has his first parole board hearing Nov. 17 since his guilty plea. But, before then, the parole board will hear from Kim Heath next week to get information on how the murder of her brother impacted her life, as well as the lives of family members, including the victim’s children.
Kim Heath, who now lives in Las Vegas, said the pain of losing her older brother never goes away as she thinks about and misses him every day.
“His death is a daily reminder to me, his children and the family because he is not here,” she said. “There isn’t a brother to talk to, a father to talk to, a son to talk to. When my mom was alive, she was especially devastated to lose her son.”
Asked if the years have softened her heart and allowed her to forgive her brother’s killer, she insisted she has no personal feelings toward Benner at all. Instead, she said, it is a matter of principle and human decency.
“I don’t feel like I have anything to forgive (Benner) for,” she said. “What happened between my brother and him was between them. They had their thing. However, you can’t do to another person what (Benner) did to my brother. It was a vicious, premeditated act.
“He knew when he got into my brother’s car that night he was going to try to kill him for some drugs. He had the knife. And I don’t feel he should be released from prison.”
At his hearing before then-judge Paul Pozonsky in October 2003, Benner accepted a plea bargain by admitting his guilt. He cried – often uncontrollably – as he said he was responsible for killing Heath.
Benner originally was charged with criminal homicide, aggravated assault, robbery, and theft by unlawful taking in connection with the grisly murder of Heath.
Had Benner gone to trial and been convicted on all counts, he faced a maximum penalty of life plus 45 years in prison. He pleaded guilty to third-degree murder instead for the lesser sentence.
“The only reason I was in favor of the plea bargain back then was because I did not want to put our family, especially Jo Jo’s children, through the stress and anguish of a trial and having everything brought out in testimony,” Kim Heath said. “It was bad enough he was gone from our lives, I didn’t want them to hear that testimony and evidence.”
Heath said she doesn’t feel Benner deserves to be free yet and she said hundreds of others feel the same way. She organized an online petition to keep Benner behind bars and it currently has several hundred signatures.
“I’m going to present the petition to the parole board when I have my Zoom meeting with them,” she said. “I hope to impress upon them my opinion on how the terrible loss of my brother has impacted all of our lives.”
Anyone who would like to sign the petition can do so by logging on to GoPetition.com/petitions/no-parole-for-jojo-heaths-murderer.html.
Heath grew up in Monessen and was a star football player and basketball player for the Greyhounds.
He went on to a successful gridiron career at Pitt where he won a national championship, was a team captain and was one of the top kick returners in the nation. He was drafted by Cincinnati in the 1980 NFL Draft. He played several years for several teams in the NFL, played in the Canadian Football League where he was named the Defensive MVP of the Grey CUP (CFL’s version of the Super Bowl). He also played for the Houston Gamblers in the former USFL and played in the Arena League.
After his playing days were over, Heath served as an assistant football coach at Monessen.