OLATHE, Kan. – A woman convicted of murdering her husband in their Kansas home walked free Wednesday after serving just 9 years for the crime, reports CBS affiliate KCTV.
In 1982, Melinda Raisch’s husband, 25-year-old David Harmon, was bludgeoned to death in their bedroom. At the time, Raisch told police two intruders knocked her out and she woke up later to find her husband dead. Detectives never believed her story.
Even so, Raisch moved to Ohio, married again and started a family.
Olathe detectives reopened the case 20 years later. This time, she changed her story, telling detectives there was just one intruder.
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They arrested her and her former boyfriend, Mark Mangelsdorf, a New York marketing executive who, at the time of the murder, was a college student in Olathe, Kansas.
According to the Kansas City Star, Raisch was convicted of first-degree murder, but prosecutors agreed to a deal where she could plead guilty to second-degree murder in exchange for her testimony against Mangelsdorf.
Mangelsdorf pleaded to second-degree murder and in 2006 both were sentenced to 10-20 years, reports the Star.
Raisch, who was freed Wednesday, will be under supervised parole in Ohio for ten more years.