SIERRA VISTA The parole hearing for William 展illie Huff, convicted of two second-degree murders of two young girls in 1967, has been continued, according to a spokesman for the Arizona Board of Executive Clemency.

Huff, 57, was supposed to have a parole hearing on Jan. 15, but due to circumstances involving witnesses for and against him, the hearing was continued to Feb. 24, board chairman Duane Belcher said Monday.

Huff was a 16-year-old Buena High School student at the time when he was sentenced to life by a federal judge after pleading guilty to second-degree murder in the death of Jenelle Haines, 6.


The daughter of a U.S. Army officer, her body was found on Fort Huachuca on June 22, 1967, the day of her murder.

It was on May 3, 1967, when the remains of Cindy Clelland, 7, whose father was an Army noncommissioned officer, were discovered. She had disappeared in Sierra Vista on April 30, 1967.

Her body was found on the post but in an area that was not technically under federal jurisdiction, so Huff was sentenced to life by a Cochise County Superior Court judge after pleading guilty to second-degree murder.

Both sentences were to be served concurrently. It was reported Huff pleaded guilty in order to avoid the death penalty.

The girls had been stripped of their clothing, but neither had been sexually violated, investigators determined. However, Clellandç—´ death was particularly gruesome as she had been disemboweled and her head bashed in by a rock.

The day after Thanksgiving 2008, Huff was released from federal confinement in California and was turned over to Arizona, first to the Cochise County Sheriffç—´ Office and then to the state Department of Corrections, where he is currently being held in Florence.