Donna Yaklich To Be Released After 18-Year Prison Term

ARAPAHOE COUNTY, Colo. -- The Pueblo woman convicted of hiring two teens to kill her police detective husband is heading to a halfway house after spending almost 18 years in prison.

Donna Yaklich, 50, was ordered released from the Colorado Women's Correctional Facility in Canon City in the next 10 days and will be moving to a halfway house in Arapahoe County. The decision was made Thursday afternoon by the Arapahoe County Community Corrections Board. Yaklich was not at the hearing and learned of the decision by phone.

She was arrested after Dennis Yaklich was gunned down in the driveway of their home in 1985 and eventually convicted of conspiracy to commit murder in the death. She was sentenced to 40 years in prison.

Two brothers, Charles and Edward Greenwell, were also arrested and sentenced to prison terms for killing Yaklich. Charles Greenwell, who was 16 at the time of the crime, received a 20-year prison sentence; Eddie, then 25, received 30 years.

Donna Yaklich maintained she was abused by her husband, who was a weightlifter and took steroids. She said she was afraid he would kill her.

A state task force has reopened the investigation into the 1977 death of Dennis Yaklich's first wife. The original investigation concluded that Barbara Yaklich died of a diet drug overdose. Donna Yaklich has said she thinks her husband was involved in the death.

The story of Donna Yaklich and her conviction was used in a 1994 made-for-TV movie, starring Jaclyn Smith of "Charlie's Angels" fame.