Baby killer, 69, who is America's longest serving female faces release from prison 49 years after being jailed for strangling 15-month-old child
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A convicted baby killer, sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole, may walk free as early as next month.
Betty Smithey, the U.S.'s longest serving female inmate, has spent the last 49 years in jail after strangling a 15-month-old child she was babysitting for.
Now she glimpses freedom after Gov. Jan Brewer agreed to reduce her sentence to 48 years to life, meaning that she is eligible for parole.
Betty Smithey, the U.S.'s longest serving female inmate, has spent the last 49 years in jail after strangling a 15-month-old child she was babysitting for
It comes as a shock to many given Brewer's reputation. Of 70 clemency recommendations she has granted just five, excluding inmates close to death suffering terminal illness.
Smithey's fate now lies in the hands of the Arizona Board of Executive Clemency, who will hold a parole hearing for her on August 13.
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ShareThe 69-year-old has battled with breast cancer, among other health issues, and now walks with a cane.
Her attorney, Andy Silverman, told the Arizona Republic that news the hearing had been granted 'came as a pleasant surprise.'
'If she was found guilty today, it may be second-degree murder,' he told Abc News. If she had [been convicted of second-degree murder instead of first] in 1963 when she was tried, she would have been out of prison many years ago.'
She has tried to escape four times, but Silverman argued that his client is 'absolutely not a threat to society,' adding that she has 'done a lot of reflection'.
Three of the five members of the parole board will have to vote in Smithey's favor in order for her to be released. If the hearing is unsuccessful, she'll be eligible again in six months.
If it is successful she said she plans to stay with her niece.
Reflecting on her crime she has said: 'I am very sorry for what happened. It sounds so bland and flat, everybody says they're sorry.
'I can't bring back the life that I took. It doesn't alter the fact of what I did. The only thing I can do is try to make myself a better person.'
Home sweet home: Betty Smithey is currently housed at the Arizona State Prison Complex ¿ Perryville, in Goodyear, Arizona
Smithey was convicted in the 1963 New Year's Day murder of 15-month-old Sandy Gerberick, one of four children she was caring for as a 20-year-old live-in babysitter.
The baby's mother, Erma, was making breakfast wen her six-year-old son ran in shouting 'Mama, Sandy's dead!' Arizona Republic reported.
Baby Sandy had been strangled and Smithey was arrested the next day, found hitchiking on a highway.
She allegedly told the patrolman who found her: 'I think I hurt the baby,,, I may have used a stocking.'
She was booked into a Pima County jail where she unsuccessfully tried to kill herself.
At trial Smithey's lawyer tried to argue that she was mentally ill but on July 10 1963 she was found guilty of first-degree murder and was lead from the courtroom shouting: 'I'm not going to prison. I'll kill myself, you watch!'
She was sentenced to life without parole and transferred to the women's prison at Florence. She is currently housed at the Arizona State Prison Complex – Perryville, in Goodyear, Arizona.
Smithey herself suffered a turbulent childhood, her father dying when she was four and her poverty-stricken mother declared by the state of Oklahoma to be incapable of caring for her seven daughters.
The girls became wards of the state and were separated, most of them never seeing one another again.
She hopped from orphanages to foster homes before being adopted aged eight by a family who physically abused her and she returned to the orphanage.
It was the beginning of a life running from authorities, suffering ill health and psychological trauma.
During a previous posting as a baby-sitter Smithey ran-away with her employer's 18-month-old son and served four years in a juvenile prison, convicted of kidnapping.
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