Woman who killed her husband with rat poison 20 years ago for insurance money, released from prison

A woman who pleaded guilty to killing her husband by slipping rat poison into his food and drinks will be released from prison next week.



Joann Curley, 53, will be free on Monday after serving a 20-year sentence for the 1991 death of her husband, Robert Curley, prison officials told The Citizens Voice.



"I don't feel she served enough time," the victim's sister, Susan Curley Grady, told the newspaper. "She should be serving a life sentence."



Prosecutors say it took more than a year for Joann Curley to poison her husband to death for $300,000 in life insurance and to keep him from spending $1.7 million she won in a lawsuit.



Robert Curley was hospitalized in September 1991 with flu-like symptoms, complaining of debilitating pain in his palms and the soles of his feet, and began vomiting and losing his hair.



Just as Curley began improving in the hospital, his wife visited, bringing pizza and thallium-spiked tea, authorities say.



The same night, they say, he told a nurse, "Please help me. My wife is trying to kill me; she is not as she seems."



His heart stopped the next morning.