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BRIGHAM CITY, Utah (AP) -- An angry wife who killed her husband after she caught him in bed with another woman will serve up to five years in prison.
Vickie Marie Ruiz, 43, pleaded guilty in September to second-degree felony manslaughter, which was reduced from first-degree felony murder in a plea agreement.
John Matthew Ruiz, 44, was shot once in the chest on May 7.
Vickie Ruiz found him and another woman seminude in a motor home parked next to the couple's Brigham City house after a party the couple had hosted that night, according to court documents. She got a .22-caliber handgun from the home and confronted the pair.
Defense attorney Ron Nichols was successful Tuesday in persuading 1st District Judge Ben Hadfield to sentence the case as a third-degree felony. Ruiz had originally faced a prison term of one to 15 years.
Box Elder County prosecutors were silent during the sentencing as a part of the plea agreement.
Ruiz's daughter, Sherry, begged the judge to hand out the harshest sentence possible, calling her mother selfish and cruel.
"She has placed blame on everyone else but herself," she said, reading a letter she said was also from her two sisters. "Sorry is not enough."
Nichols had argued that Vickie Ruiz only intended to frighten her husband, despite her telling a 911 dispatcher that she should have shot the woman too.
"She has overwhelming remorse for the events on that evening and apologizes to all of the victims," he said.
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
