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WILKES-BARRE — Joann Curley, who is in her last week of incarceration for the September 1991 murder of her husband, Bobby, will be released from prison on Dec. 12.

Amy Boylan, assistant to the superintendent at the State Correctional Institution at Cambridge Springs, the minimum-security female facility near Erie where Curley is housed, confirmed the date of release.

Curley, 53, was denied parole for the final time a year ago, forcing her to serve her full sentence. Bobby Curley’s family attended every parole board hearing for Joann Curley to fight an early release.

“At least we were able to keep her in prison for her entire sentence,” Susan Curley Grady, Bobby’s sister, said Monday. “As far we we are concerned, she hasn’t paid her debt to society. Bobby is never coming home — why should she.”

That said, Curley-Grady said she and her brother, David, are resigned to the fact that there is nothing they can do to prevent Joann from being released. They feel the legal system has failed them.

The Curleys have no idea where Joann Curley intends to reside once she is out of prison.

“Who knows, she may return to the area,” Curley-Grady said. “It’s just not right that a confessed murderer is allowed to go free.”

Bobby’s family finds some satisfaction in that Joann Curley will serve out her maximum sentence of 20 years after the state parole board last year denied her eighth and final request for parole. Joann Curley has admitted she poisoned Bobby with thallium, but has never expressed any remorse for her actions.

The Curley family — Susan, David and their late mother, Mary — felt that on Sept. 27, 1991, Bobby was sentenced to death for being nothing more than a happy-go-lucky, hard-working, caring man. They all have felt that they have been living with life sentences, while Joann, they say, appears to have received the lightest sentence of all.

Joann Curley pleaded guilty to third-degree murder, admitting she laced her husband’s iced tea with rat poison. She started poisoning him just two months after their August 1990 wedding. Her motive was Bobby’s life insurance policy, according to previous reports and court records.

The state parole board said it denied Joann’s parole because she expressed lack of remorse for the offense. Other reasons noted by the board included reports, evaluations and assessments that indicated her risk to the community, her refusal to accept responsibility for the offense and the negative recommendation made by the prosecuting attorney.

The Curley family fought to get legislation enacted to help families of violent crime victims. Passed in June 2013, House Bill 492 allows victims of crimes, or their representatives, to testify before the state parole board prior to the board’s decision to release an offender from prison.

Curley-Grady said it took five years before investigators put the pieces of the puzzle together and charged Joann in 1996.

In this 2015 Times Leader file photo, Glen Grady stands with his arm around his wife, Susan Curley Grady, during a vigil for murdered loved ones in Plains. Susan holds two candles, one for her late mother, Mary Curley, and another for her brother, Bobby, who was murdered by his wife, Joanne, in 1991.
https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/web1_Curley-Family-3.jpg.optimal.jpgIn this 2015 Times Leader file photo, Glen Grady stands with his arm around his wife, Susan Curley Grady, during a vigil for murdered loved ones in Plains. Susan holds two candles, one for her late mother, Mary Curley, and another for her brother, Bobby, who was murdered by his wife, Joanne, in 1991.

By Bill O’Boyle

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Reach Bill O’Boyle at 570-991-6118 or on Twitter @TLBillOBoyle.