Mo. woman whose life sentence was commuted 3 years ago is released

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- A domestic violence victim whose life sentence for murder was commuted three years ago walked out of a northwest Missouri prison a free woman Wednesday morning.

Betty Coleman's case was not related to domestic violence, but an anti-domestic violence group took up her cause anyway, saying she was abused by the boyfriend who participated with her in the slaying of a potential witness in a burglary case against the boyfriend, Doyle Williams.

The sentences of Coleman and two other abused women were commuted in late 2004 by then-Gov. Bob Holden, making them eligible for early parole. But the women weren't immediately freed, which angered domestic violence victim advocates and sparked litigation.

Coleman, the last of the three women to leave prison, was released shortly after 8 a.m. Wednesday from the Chillicothe Correctional Center amid cheers from fellow inmates.

"It was like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders," Coleman said in a phone interview hours after leaving prison. "But there was such a feeling of it being natural, like this is where I belong."

Although relieved and overjoyed to be a free woman, she remains disappointed in the parole board's handling of her case.

"I feel like it took a lot of pushing from the public to get them to release me," Coleman said. "I still don't feel like they follow their own regulations."

Coleman served about a year in jail and 26 years in prison for her role in the killing of Kerry Brummett, of Jefferson City. Coleman was convicted in 1981 and given a life sentence after prosecutors claimed she drove Brummett to the meeting with Williams that eventually led to Brummett being beaten.

Brummett, bleeding and dazed from the assault with his hands cuffed behind his back, drowned when he ran into the Missouri River to try to escape. Williams, sentenced to death, was executed in 1996.

Coleman said Wednesday that she did not know that killing Brummett was part of Williams' plan when he asked her to arrange for them to meet.

"I trusted that man, and he violated that trust," she said Wednesday, describing Williams as mentally and emotionally abusive. "He put me in a situation where the life of a man was lost. I never stepped into that knowingly."

Coleman, now 51, said she will live in St. Louis. Until she gets a job and finds her own place, she will live in an apartment run by a group that provides housing for people coming out of prison.

The parole board had set an October 2008 release date for Coleman after Holden commuted her sentence. Coleman and her advocates pushed for an earlier release.

Meanwhile, the two other domestic violence victims whose sentences had been commuted went to court over their stalled releases. In April, the Missouri Supreme Court ordered the parole board to release one of the women, Shirley Lute, and to consider releasing another, Lynda Branch.

Lute had been in prison since 1981, convicted of aiding her son in the Monroe County murder of her husband. Branch, had been in prison for nearly two decades after being convicted for shooting her husband in 1986 at their Cole County home.

The court said the parole board could not consider the circumstances of the crimes because Holden already had in commuting the women's sentences.

Branch and Lute were released in May. Then in July, the parole board decided to release Coleman sooner than October 2008.

The cases of Branch and Lute were among the original 11 clemency requests filed by the Missouri Battered Women's Clemency Coalition. It was created in 2000 by the Missouri Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence and professors and students at the state's four law schools. The clemency coalition supported Coleman's case in a separate filing to the governor.

Coalition members did not immediately return calls seeking comment Wednesday.