Woman Who Shot Husband Could Be Free in 2 Mos.

SELMER, Tenn. | A woman who killed her preacher husband with a shotgun blast to the back as he lay in bed was sentenced Friday to three years in prison, but with time served could be released on probation in a little more than two months.

Mary Winkler must serve at least 210 days of her sentence but gets credit for the 143 days she has already spent in jail, Judge Weber McCraw said.

Prosecutors had pursued a murder charge against Winkler, 33, but jurors convicted her of the lesser count of voluntary manslaughter in April.

She could have received up to six years for killing her husband, Matthew, in the parsonage where the family lived in March 2006. A day later she was arrested 340 miles away on the Alabama coast, driving the family minivan with her three young daughters inside.

virginia

Shuttle includes virginia items

RICHMOND | A Virginia Tech flag, a University of Virginia graduate and a relic from America’s first permanent English settlement at Jamestown accompanied the shuttle Atlantis on Friday as it blasted off on a mission to the international space station.

The spaceship rose from its seaside Florida launch pad with a roar and climbed into a clear and brightly lit sky at 7:38 p.m.

Retired U.S. Army Col. Patrick Forrester, a 50-year-old University of Virginia graduate, was among the seven astronauts.

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