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<p>Joann Curley is a free woman. Or is she?</p><p>When she walked out of a women&#8217;s mini-security prison in Cambridge Springs shortly after midnight Dec. 12, Curley was legally declared free. She had spent 20 years behind bars for murdering her husband, Bobby, by lacing his iced tea with thallium.</p><p>Those who were around 20 years ago have vivid recollections of the story. Bobby Curley was an electrician working for Morgan Electric of Luzerne. Most of his co-workers were under suspicion and even intensely questioned about their involvement with Bobby and their possible involvement in his death.</p><p>Because Morgan Electric employees worked at the Stark Learning Center on the campus of Wilkes University (Wilkes College at the time) and because thallium was reportedly missing from one of the labs at the center, the electricians on the job were prime suspects.</p><p>They went through hell. Their families went through hell. Nobody wanted Bobby&#8217;s killer found more than Bob Morgan, who owned the electric company, even though his own son was questioned by authorities.</p><p>All the time these families were agonizing over their loved ones and the suspicion of their possible involvement in Bobby&#8217;s death, Joann was going about her business as the grieving widow.</p><p>It was just two months into her marriage to Bobby Curley that she began poisoning his iced tea &#8212; presumably for his life insurance money.</p><p>Five years after Bobby&#8217;s death, Joann admitted she poisoned Bobby with thallium &#8212; a chemical element found in rat poison and insecticides &#8212; but never expressed remorse for her actions.</p><p>The state parole board said it denied her parole because she lacked remorse. 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, not to mention the diligence Bobby&#8217;s family &#8212; his late mother, Mary, his brother, David, and his sister, Susan &#8212; put forth to get legislation enacted to help families of violent-crime victims.</p><p>Passed in June 2013, House Bill 492 allows those victims, or their representatives, to testify before the parole board prior to the board&#8217;s decision to release an offender from prison.</p><p>Joann&#8217;s waiting is over and, now, she is free.</p><p>After 20 years in prison, it will take some time for her to acclimate herself to the world as it is today &#8212; a much different world than she left 20 years ago. Her former sister-in-law reportedly met her at the prison gates last weekend and drove her back to Wyoming Valley, but where will Joann live? Will she be welcomed into her new neighborhood?</p><p>Will she be able to move about freely as most of us do? Can she simply get into a car and go to the grocery store? Can she go out for dinner or to the movies?</p><p>We wonder how free Joann will really be. Then again, for a woman who has never seemed to be sorry she poisoned her young husband to death, perhaps she is more free than we can imagine.</p><style>
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Our View: Out of prison, but is Joanne Curley truly free?