A woman who spent 40 years behind bars for her husband’s 1984 murder has been released from prison just in time to spend Christmas with her family.
Patty Prewitt, the longest-serving female prisoner in Missouri , was among the nine people whose sentences were commuted by Missouri Governor Mike Parson on Friday.
“I am so grateful to be home with my family for Christmas,” she said in a statement following her release. “Thank you to Governor Mike Parson and to all the people who have supported me over the years.”
Prewitt, who is now a 75-year-old grandmother, had been serving a life sentence for the February 18, 1984 murder of her husband, William “Bill” Edward Prewitt, as he slept in their home in the rural Missouri town of Holden.
The murder shocked the small community who knew the pair as an “all-American couple,” according to previous reporting by The Kansas City Star.