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Last updated on Monday, January 6, 2014
(BLOOMINGTON) - Ronald Lewis got out of prison on his birthday, Dec. 9, after serving four years for killing his wife at their Lake Monroe condominium in 2007.
Indiana Department of Correction officials drove him to Bloomington from the Correctional Facility in Pendleton and dropped him off.
He was a 74-year-old felon with mental health issues, no family, not much money and no place to go. One week later, Lewis was again in police custody after apparently stabbing himself in the neck and lying to officers that he had been the victim of a robbery and assault.
Lewis received a 20-year prison sentence in 2009 for shooting his wife to death.
Lewis pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter, and is getting out of prison just four years after receiving a 20-year sentence.
Lewis initially claimed his wife's December 2007 shooting death at their Pointe condominium was a "freak accident" and that he was innocent of murder. Then, in January 2009 he admitted in court that he intentionally shot 59-year-old Laura Lewis once in the back of the head in a sudden heat of the moment.
He pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of voluntary manslaughter.
Police say Lewis shot his wife with a .38-caliber handgun, then shot himself once in the chest and three times in the head in a suicide attempt.
He left a note taped to the condo's front door addressed "to whoever finds our bodies."
As for why or what the motive was, police say they were both wanted on warrants out of Clark County for fraud and they were losing their condo after a foreclosure.
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