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.
Prewitt claimed an intruder broke into their home and attacked them while they were sleeping. She said her husband, who was 35, was shot and she was attacked with a knife.
But at the time, investigators said there was no sign of forced entry and turned their attention to Prewitt as a suspect.
The murder weapon was found in a pond on the couple’s property and investigators believed a boot print found in the pond bed matched boots belonging to Patty Prewitt.
At the trial, prosecutors claimed that Prewitt tried to dispose of the gun by throwing it into a pond but when it got stuck, she waded into the water and pushed it down with her boot.
Prewitt declined a plea deal that would have given her the chance for parole after five to seven years. Instead she was sentenced to life in prison and became the state’s longest-serving female prisoner.
The mother of five has maintained her innocence and for years, while lawyers and advocates have criticized the case, and blamed an inadequate investigation and flawed trial for her imprisonment.
Prewitt filed multiple clemency requests over the years, with support from her family, including their five children, who claimed she was wrongfully convicted and fiercely advocated for her release.
A website advocating for her clemency claimed investigators ignored credible leads pointing to an intruder and failed to collect key evidence that could have identified a person who Prewitt says assaulted her and murdered her husband.
Prewitt was freed on Friday, the Associated Press reported, and is enjoying the holiday with her family, according to posts on social media. The commuted sentence for Prewitt does not pardon her of the murder conviction, but grants her release on parole, it was reported.
Her case was among nine commutations and also 16 pardons by the governor Friday, including Eric DeValkenaere, the former Kansas City police detective convicted in 2021 of involuntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of Cameron Lamb, a Black man, in December 2019.
