She looks like she could be your grandmother; thin, mild-mannered and wearing a long grey braid. But 71-year-old Carolyn Krizan-Wilson is now a convicted murderer.
"We knew it and everybody that knew the situation knew it," said Linda Petty, the victim's sister. "Some of her friends, oh she couldn't do that. But she said, 'I did it,' and that's what we really wanted to hear."
Krizan-Wilson admitted to murdering her ex-husband, Roy McCaleb, back in 1985.
"They had only been married like a year and nine months," said Pamela McCaleb Nalley, the victim's daughter. "Come to find out he was her seventh husband. She did get arrested for bigamy after my daddy died because she was still married to somebody."
Krizan-Wilson, who is now struggling with dementia, was sentenced to just six months in jail and ten years of probation.
"Her age and her medical condition, I think all sides realized this was probably the right and just decision to make for all parties," said defense attorney Stafford James.
Prosecutors say they accepted a plea deal because they couldn't risk taking the case to trial.
"There's not a lot of evidence to go on," said prosecutor Bill Exley. "You can find yourself in a situation where you know someone's guilty but you might not have the proof you need to get it to court."
"One day, she's going to have to talk to God and she's going to have to face what she did," said Nalley. "There are higher powers."
Her sentence begins on December 26, the day after Christmas.
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