A New Jersey woman was sentenced to eight years in prison Friday for the 2015 strangulation death of her husband, news outlets reported.
Michelle Hurley, 48, was convicted of second-degree murder in March in a retrial in the death of David Hurley, 50, and was facing 10 years behind bars, according to the Hudson County View.
Authorities said Hurley strangled her husband with a chain-link lamp cord in the couple’s Bayonne, New Jersey, home in September 2015.
In Hurley's first trial in 2018, she was found not guilty of murder and passion/provocation manslaughter, and the jury was deadlocked on charges of aggravated manslaughter and manslaughter, the View reported.
At her sentencing, David Hurley's son, Patrick Hurley, called Michelle Hurley "the epitome of evil," NJ.com reported.
“I know that the monster that stands before you in this courtroom is a lying, disgusting, callous thing,” he said.
David Hurley did not die immediately from his injuries and was hospitalized for almost a month before his death.
During the sentencing, his sister, Deborah Forrester, called Michelle Hurley "a cold-hearted evil monster" who "has no soul," and said her sister-in-law had never shown any remorse, according to NJ.com.
Michelle Hurley addressed the court before her sentencing, apologizing to family members.
“For the past three years, I have been portrayed as a monster and a murderer, a person without feelings or emotions,” she said.
“I never intended to take his life. I am not a monster,” she told the court.
At the time of David Hurley’s death, the couple was going through a divorce but still lived in the same home together.
Michelle Hurley told responding officers that David Hurley had been extremely intoxicated and that she had acted in self-defense.
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