BUNKER HILL | Graduating summa cum laude can be a sure path to success.

But what if you do it behind prison walls?

Inmate 29726 counts on the achievement securing him a good life on the outside.

Paul Komyatti Jr. was a 17-year-old Hammond Morton High School football player when he held down his father as his brother-in-law, William Vandiver, stabbed the man more than 30 times.

He helped Vandiver put the severed remains in trash bags and tossed them along the Lake Michigan shore.

That was in 1983.

Within months, Komyatti will be free. It could be in 24 months. It could be in two months. But Komyatti, now 42, is getting out.

Along with his bachelor's degree, he'll take an armload of tattoos, a broken heart, a color TV and the same steely resolve he has shouldered his entire life.

Always in prison

Komyatti says even before his conviction, his father's violent behavior put him and his family in a prison of sorts.

When Komyatti was 6, his dad whipped him with the steel-buckled end of a leather belt for leaving a fingerprint on the freshly painted garage. That was his first beating.

As a teenager, Komyatti said he got used to his drunken father meeting him at the door with a fist to the face.

Another common target of the drunken rage, Komyatti's mother, bloodied and bruised, often called police. The only time Komyatti remembers anything more than a "Sir, you have to stop hitting your wife," was when his dad turned on the officers and they arrested him.

"Back then there was no recognition of domestic violence being a crime," Komyatti said.

Komyatti helped carry out several schemes to murder his father. He said along with his sister, his mother and Vandiver they tried medication overdoses, rat poison, ether and suffocation before giving up and killing him with a fish filet knife.

But, "I never hit my dad. Never," Komyatti said.

He refers to the murder in many ways -- a mistake, the result of being "extremely naive, immature and foolish" -- hinting at regret, but perhaps simply the regret of getting caught.

When it comes to his memories of that night, they're "mostly disassociative," Komyatti said. "Almost all my memories are from in prison."

A prison education

Komyatti entered prison barely a man.

At 18, the 55 years he got for murder and conspiracy to commit murder seemed like a life sentence.

That's when his prison education began. Komyatti learned about the tools of escape: how to fashion a handcuff key out of a watch back, how to flatten cans to pop a lock, how to use an engine bracket to crack open a sewer grate.

When those deeds landed him in the Maximum Control Complex in Westville, Komyatti learned passive resistance.

He went on two hunger strikes to protest the conditions at Westville -- the mausoleum-like concrete cells and no human contact or sunlight for 23 hours a day.

When prison officials handcuffed a starving Komyatti to a wall for 15 days, he learned how to file a lawsuit.

He won back all his suspended good-time credit days plus $15,000.

Komyatti was disciplined for sending roses to the home of a nurse who cared for him during his hunger strikes. That nurse quit working at the prison, divorced her husband and began visiting Komyatti.

But a new rule requiring former prison employees to get permission to visit inmates put an end to the visits. She told Komyatti "maybe it isn't God's will." That was the last time he saw her.

Prison officials stopped Komyatti and another inmate from mailing severed fingers in protest. One inmate cut off part of a digit, but the bulge in the legal envelope in which he tried to mail it to the American Civil Liberties Union aroused a guard's suspicions and he was busted.

Komyatti spent four hours sawing through his little finger with the single safety razor doled out to prisoners. He was caught when the guard checked to see if Komyatti was done with the razor.

Something clicked

"When I realized I had 10 years already and I was approaching half of my sentence and might actually get out, I decided to make the best of the opportunities."

Komyatti took every class offered in prison before starting college courses. He graduated from Ball State University with a bachelor's degree in history.

Figuring he'd done everything he could to rehabilitate himself, Komyatti tried to get out legally.

With his previous settlement, Komyatti hired Merrillville lawyer Nick Thiros to petition Lake County Prosecutor Bernard Carter for a sentence modification. Carter agreed, signing the motion on Sept. 25.

Komyatti said the hearing was set for the Wednesday before Thanksgiving to let whatever furor was created by his getting out die down over the holiday weekend. Ready for freedom, Komyatti gave away all his belongings except his TV and a box of legal papers.

But Carter changed his mind and the hearing wasn't held.

"It was nothing to do with me," Komyatti said he was told. "It was all about defense attorneys crying because they couldn't get sentence modifications for their clients."

Still, under current state rules, Komyatti will be paroled in 24 months, maximum.

In a letter he'd planned to read at his hearing, Komyatti accepted responsibility for his crime. He said that while in prison, rather than focusing on a past he couldn't change, he looked to the future.

"In that sense, I believe I've surpassed every ideal of what reformation is composed of and, in so doing, perhaps provided some hope in a seemingly hopeless world to those struggling without a light at the end of the tunnel as I once was."

Breakout

On March 20, 1983, Paul Komyatti Jr., William Vandiver, Mariann Vandiver and Rosemary Komyatti killed Paul Komyatti Sr., 65.

The senior Komyatti's wife, Rosemary, is serving a 100-year sentence for murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

William Vandiver was electrocuted Oct. 16, 1985. His wife, Paul Komyatti Jr.'s sister Mariann, served two years in prison for assisting a criminal. Paul Komyatti Jr. said the last time he saw Mariann was when she testified against him.