Parole denied for ex-handyman convicted in machete attack

A former Santa Rosa handyman, serving 15 years to life in prison for a near-fatal machete attack on a sleeping man after sneaking into his apartment, lost his recent bid to be released on parole from state prison, the Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office said.

The state Board of Parole Hearings rejected the bid by Ray Allen Mays, 38, at a July 16 hearing after reviewing prison records, psychological evaluations and statements from his defense and Deputy District Attorney Brian Staebell, who appeared to oppose his release, District Attorney officials said in a statement.

On Feb. 23, 2002, Mays slipped through an unlocked door of a Larkfield apartment of a sleeping couple in a complex where he’d been fired from a maintenance job.

The sleeping man awoke and Mays attacked him with a machete in repeated blows, District Attorney officials said. Mays left after the man’s wife began screaming.

Ronald Carli, who has since retired as an executive of a Santa Rosa farm lending agency, required more than 200 staples to close the wound, according to the District Attorney’s Office.

Sonoma County sheriff’s investigators said Mays confessed that he had taken methamphetamine and plotted to pin the crime on the apartment managers as revenge. Mays testified that he did not know the victims but was aware they had money and wanted to steal property to fund his drug habit, according to the District Attorney’s office.

A jury in 2003 convicted Mays of attempted murder, mayhem, assault with a deadly weapon causing great bodily injury and burglary. Mays will next be eligible for parole in 2017. He was previously denied parole in 2011.

You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at 521-5220 or julie.johnson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jjreport.