BOSTON — For the second time in four years, George Powers is trying to convince the state parole board to release him from prison.
He is convicted of second-degree murder for the shooting death of Lisa Costa in June of 2000.
She was shot and killed in a Taunton park right in front of two daughters and a grandchild.
Powers claims he randomly fired a rifle into a crowd to impress his friends, claiming he didn’t aim at Lisa.
"I did not truly intend to hit anyone. But I did. And I am responsible for the consequences of my actions," Powers said to the board.
But that doesn’t seem to sit right with at least one parole board member.
"I did look in the scope," Powers said in response to a question from that board member. "I'm not quite sure [why]. The one thing I will say is when I looked through the scope, I did not line anyone up."
At the time of the murder, Powers was 16 years old.
He told the parole board he has spent the last 19 years in prison earning a liberal arts degree from Boston Univerisity and taking anger management and substance abuse classes to prepare him for life on the outside.
But Lisa Costa's family urged the board to keep Powers in prison. They said 19 years was not enough.
"He took a rifle with a scope attached, aimed in a park full of children and people, looked in the scope, aimed it at my mother who was holding a baby, and made the decision to pull the trigger," the victim's daughter, Marquee Savoy said.
George Powers is 35 years old now. If released, he told the parole board he will live with relatives in Virginia.
Lisa Costa’s family is doing all it can to fight his release.
"If he gets out now, something's wrong. He definitely shouldn’t be out," Costa's daughter, Shannon Savoy, said.
The parole board’s decision could take weeks, if not months.
[ SJC: Sentence fair for man convicted of 3 killings as teen ]