once you've decided to be tough, it's hard to go back and say, "we were wrong." >> narrator: in anthony rolon's case, the end of the superpredator scare didn't change his sentence. in 2003, the original judge in the case reduced rolon's crime to second-degree murder, making him eligible for parole, but the massachusetts supreme court reversed the ruling, leaving rolon without any further options. >> i just was tired. i was spiritually, mentally tired. i was tired of going in the hole. i was tired of being an individual that didn't care. many years within my sentence, i just asked god, "make me different." if i'm going to die in prison, if this is what it's gonna be, allow me to be a better person than i came in. >> narrator: meanwhile, joe donovan got caught up in a lot of prison violence, at one point assaulting two prison guards, and faced years of disciplinary detention. >> i was in numerous fights in the beginning. i ended up going to ddu, which is solitary confinement. isolation. i'm not sure how they describe it, but it's the hole. everybody knows what the hole is, right? so i did about f

anthony rolon was convicted of killing bobby bothelo at age 17. here's a look. >> bobby bothelo was stabbed to death nearly two decades ago. tonight, his family speaks to eyewitness news as they wait to hear if his killer will stay behind bars. >> it's unfair. it shouldn't even be happening. we have to fight and we'll do whatever it takes. >> i knew that the victim's family believed i shouldn't even be having this opportunity to give this individual a second chance. >> good morning, mr. rolon. i'm chairman of the parole board. we had here today to consider your petition for parole for a first-degree murder sentence for stabbing and killing bobby bothelo on january 21... >>imented to have respect for the family, so i didn't want to lock over there, but i went there with the purpose of having that opportunity to just say, "i'm sorry." it's time to speak the truth. it's time to say what happened. it's time to own up. after being convicted of take mr. bothelo's life, i told his mother that i didn't kill her son. for the past 18 years and six months, m