CONCORD, N.H. – A New Hampshire man sentenced to prison for hiding evidence and concocting an alibi for machete-wielding home invaders who killed a woman and maimed her 11-year-old daughter has been granted parole on one conviction but will not go free anytime soon.

The state parole board ruled Thursday that 22-year-old Autumn Savoy merited parole after serving the minimum 2 1/2 years for hindering apprehension. He will remain behind bars and start serving another 2 1/2- to 6-year-sentence May 14 on a second conviction for hindering prosecution.

Board Chairman Pierre Morin the board had little choice but to grant parole after Savoy served his minimum sentence because he completed all programs he was required to take behind bars, voluntarily took other classes and has had no disciplinary violations. “We may not be overly happy about it, but the only thing we can do is grant Mr. Savoy parole,” Morin said.

Savory admitted helping convicted killers Steven Spader and Christopher Gribble dump their bloody clothing in a river just hours after Kimberly Cates was hacked to death and Jaimie Cates was maimed in the Oct. 4, 2009, attacks in their Mont Vernon home. Savoy knew of the killers’ plans to commit a burglary a week before the attacks, and the day before helped them research how to make chloroform in the event the occupants of the house they burglarized were home.

“Autumn Savoy could have prevented all this from happening,” an emotional David Cates said, telling the board he relives his wife’s horrific killing daily. He told them his wife and daughter – sleeping together in the master bedroom while he traveled on business – “wakened to the sound of these useless criminals towering over them, shining an iPod in their faces.”

“Close your eyes for a moment and imagine just how scared they were as dozens of stabs and slashes were delivered with razor sharp knives to their helpless bodies,” Cates said, his voice quavering. “I live with this image every day of my life.”

Kimberly Cates was 42.

Spader and Gribble are both serving life sentences without possibility of parole. Two other young men at the Cates’ home that night who did not participate in the attacks but were involved in the plotting that led to them – Billy Marks and Quinn Glover, both 20 – will not be eligible for parole for more than a decade.