ABC News will air a segment on a former Penn State assistant professor of education tonight as part of their Primetime Thursday lineup.

Paul Krueger killed three fishermen off the coast of Texas in 1966 when he was 17 years old. Although he was given three life sentences, he was paroled in 1979 and went on to work at Penn State in 1999.

His case brought publicity to the issue of background checks for faculty because Penn State was unaware of his criminal record when Krueger was hired. This semester, the university implemented mandatory checks on new employees before they can be hired.

Charles Gibson of Primetime Thursday conducted the interviews for the 15-minute segment to air tonight at 10, ABC News spokesman Adam Pockriss said. "It is obviously a compelling and interesting story," he said.

Pockriss added that the segment chronicles Krueger's teenage years, his time in jail, his time at Penn State and what happened when people found out about his past.

"It also tells where he is now," he said, "since he is basically persona non grata in the education field now."

Alison Carr-Chellman, associate professor of education, was interviewed with education department head Kyle Peck for the segment. "I think they were trying to understand him as a colleague, what type of work he did, and how he was perceived," Carr-Chellman said.

She said they did not try to speak for or against Krueger but spoke a lot about the ideas of redemption and rehabilitation. "If we're going to accept those ideas, we need to allow redemption and rehabilitation to occur," she said. "We thought he was rehabilitated and had experts who said he had done a good job, yet this conflict still occurred."

Carr-Chellman said Krueger's story is compelling because there were a lot of conflicts within it.

"It was a horrific crime, but he did his best to rehabilitate himself," she said.

Pockriss said the segment features interviews from Krueger, Carr-Chellman and Peck, as well as one of Krueger's former students and a son of one of the victims.

Penn State spokeswoman Amy Neil said Gibson interviewed Krueger for Good Morning America, and she was under the impression he became interested in Krueger's story at this point.

Neil said Gibson called the university to ask permission to interview faculty, staff and students, but its officials have no knowledge of the segment's content.

However, Neil said, everyone has the right to speak about the issue, and the story of faculty background checks is newsworthy. "Anyone who shares their views has a right to share their views," she said. "The story had to be told from a national standpoint."

Carr-Chellman said she has not seen the segment but hopes for a positive outcome. "I hope it comes out well for everybody, whatever that means," Carr-Chellman said.