WOMAN ADMITS LSD JELL-O KILLING

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. (AP) A woman who won a new trial on charges she murdered
a 61-year-old man with LSD-laced Jell-O pleaded guilty to a lesser charge
on Thursday and was allowed to go free.

Christina Martin, 49, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to
the eight years that she had already served for the earlier conviction.

Martin was arrested in 1991 for the death of Richard Alfredo, a boyfriend
with a history of heart trouble.

She was freed in December 1998 after the state Supreme Judicial Court ruled
her lawyer did not adequately challenge whether Alfredo died from LSD.

An autopsy revealed no traces of the drug, but Martin's daughter said at
trial that she had slipped the drug into the dessert. Prosecutors claimed
the daughter was covering for the mom.

She said she plotted with her mother to kill Alfredo in retaliation for
years of sexual abuse she suffered at his hands, but that Martin backed out
of the conspiracy.