Paula Cooper, 43, once Indiana’s youngest Death Row inmate, was released from prison Monday.
Cooper left the Rockville Correctional Institute a little after 10 a.m., said Department of Correction spokesman Doug Garrison.
She was taken to an undisclosed location to get a new start with at least $75, a new outfit and a bachelor’s degree.
Cooper was 15 when she was charged with murder in the stabbing of 78-year-old Ruth Pelke, a Gary Bible teacher, during a robbery.
Three co-defendants — also teenage girls at the time — went to prison, but Cooper was the last to be released.
Cooper was 16 and the youngest person ever in Indiana to face the death penalty when she was sentenced.
At the time, in 1986, she also was the youngest Death Row inmate in the country.
An appeal from Pope John Paul II, an international campaign to overturn the death sentence and legal challenges helped to spare Cooper’s life.
The Indiana Supreme Court commuted the death sentence in 1989 and sent her to prison for 60 years. She earned credits for an early release.
Source: IndyStar
