Convicted killer Lee incarcerated again

A warrant was served Tuesday for the arrest of convicted killer Robert E. Lee.

Lee reportedly violated his parole when he got into a car with a person asking for directions. Officers considered this hitchhiking.

Charles Bowen, north region director for the Indiana Department of Correction, said Lee could potentially serve up to half of the remainder of his sentence for the violation.

Lee served 25 years of a 60-year sentence for the 1986 murder of Ellen Marks, a 31-year-old IU graduate student at the time. Lee was released in September and has moved at least three different times, but was initially transferred to an undisclosed location in Bloomington.

Lee was also convicted of attempted rape in 1973 in New York. He has stipulations on his parole that classify him as a sex offender.

“If you’re a paroled sex offender, you cannot hitchhike or get rides from strangers,” Bowen said. “We don’t allow that.”

While Bowen did not have Lee’s file in front of him, he said if Lee had 34 years left of his sentence, he could serve up to 17 for the violation.

St. Joseph County Jail officials confirmed Tuesday night that Lee was booked Tuesday and is currently on parole hold.

Bowen said Lee waived his probable cause hearing, and he will be returned to a department of correction facility in Indiana.

Bowen did not know where Lee would be placed.

Lee has to be presented before the Indiana parole board within 60 days of the warrant being served, which gives the board until Jan. 20, 2013, to consider his case.