SAN DIEGO (NEWS 8) — Governor Jerry Brown has granted clemency in more than a dozen local cases including one of San Diego's most infamous murders.
Laura Troiani has been serving life in prison without the possibility of parole for hiring five Marines to kill her husband, 37-year-old Carlo Troiani back in 1984.
At the time, it was the most expensive court case prosecuted in San Diego County and one of the most infamous.
San Diego attorney Paul Pfingst prosecuted the case in 1987 and spoke to News 8 about it in 2001.
"These guys enjoyed what they were doing, they enjoyed going out for the kill,” said Pfingst. “They actually enjoyed the killing.”
In August 1984, Laura Troiani lured her husband to a desolate road in Oceanside where two of the Marines ambushed him and fatally shot him in the back.
The prosecution argued that Laura was plotting to get the payout from her husband's $95,000 life insurance policy and was also having an affair with one of the five Marines.
"He felt that if Carlo Troiani were killed, he would get the girl and get the money,” said Pfingst.
Laura Troiani's defense argued that she was trapped in an abusive marriage and that she was suffering from severe depression at the time.
Years later, Laura Troiani spoke to News 8 while serving her life sentence at a women's prison in Corona.
"I'm not who people thought I was, because I'm learning to like who I am,” she said. “And I really do like who I am.”
She spent her free time in a sewing class making hats for children battling cancer.
“It gives me an opportunity to give back to the community what the community has already given to me,” said Laura.
More than three decades after her conviction, Laura Troiani, now 57 has received a commutation of her original sentence to 35 years to life with Governor Brown declaring that she has been a "positive role model in prison,” adding that she's "demonstrated that she has fully rehabilitated herself."
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