SELINSGROVE — After serving nearly 14 years of a life sentence, convicted murderer Sherry L. Ryan may get a second chance at freedom.
Ryan's life sentence for the May 1993 torture killing of Snyder County auction barn owner Arthur M. Beachy, 78, was overturned in December by the state Superior Court, and a new trial was granted.
Now 47, Ryan is scheduled to appear in Snyder County Court on Wednesday afternoon to enter a plea to a lesser offense before President Judge Harold F. Woelfel Jr., the same judge who presided at her 1995 trial and sentencing.
If a deal is reached, District Attorney Michael Sholley said, "It would possibly allow her an opportunity to get out."
He would not discuss details of the plea prior to the hearing, but said he'll take into consideration the opinions of Beachy's family and Ryan's conduct in prison.
Beachy's son, Levi, of Winfield, said the family is leaving Ryan's fate up to the courts.
"We will just leave the consequences up to the court and be satisfied," he said Monday. "We don't hold any grudges or animosity against anyone."
Ryan's attorney, Peter Campana, of Williamsport, did not return a phone call Monday.
If no deal is reached, jury selection could begin July 13.
"It's very unusual for a case to be turned over after 15 years," said District Judge John T. Robinson, a former district attorney who prosecuted Ryan and obtained a second-degree murder conviction against her in 1995. "I thought the judge and jury got it right. What (Sholley) does as the prosecutor will be up to him."
Ryan was convicted on Sept. 1, 1995, of second-degree murder for killing Beachy during a robbery at an auction house he operated for a decade off Route 522 in Snyder County.
Co-defendant Edgar M. Hurlburt Jr. pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in 1994 and is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Ryan claimed she took part in the killing under duress because she was afraid of Hurlburt.
She successfully appealed the sentence on the basis that her trial attorney, David Foster, of Lemoyne, failed to object when the court applied an outdated definition of duress.
The appeal was granted by the state Supreme Court in 2004. Last December, the state Superior Court vacated Ryan's life sentence and sent the case back to the county court for a new trial.
Sholley said he wasn't involved in the appeals over the years and only received the case a few months ago, so he couldn't explain why it took so long to wind its way through the courts.
Ryan, who has two sons, was moved last fall from the State Correctional Institute at Muncy to Snyder County Prison.
Her previous confinement in the county jail was controversial.
In 1994, following her arrest and while she was being held at the county jail, Ryan claimed she was sexually assaulted by a prison guard.
Following the guard's conviction for fondling and attempted rape, Ryan sued him and county officials in January 1996 and again in July 1997 for reneging on an out-of-court settlement.
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