Kim Williams pleaded guilty Dec. 30 for helping her estranged husband, former Kaufman County Justice of the Peace Eric Williams, kill Asst. District Attorney Mark Hasse in January 2013.

She pleaded to a reduced charge of first-degree murder that prosecutors recommended because of her testimony in her husband's capital murder trial that landed him on death row in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Soon after Kim Williams left the courthouse in the custody of the Kaufman County Sheriff's Department, Eric Williams' lawyers filed an appeal of his death sentence. In the plea deal they suggested brain damage from diabetes possibly contributed to his crimes.

Visiting Dallas County District Judge Mike Snipes sentenced Kim Williams, 48, to 40 years in prison for her role in one of three assassinations carried out by Kaufman lawyer Eric Williams last year. He was sentenced to death Dec. 17 for the murder of Cynthia McLelland, wife of Kaufman County District Attorney Michael McLelland, who also died of multiple gunshot wounds in their home in Forney in March 2013.

Family members of the murder victims consented to the plea deal, and they acknowledged her role in helping prosecutors.

After the sentencing, three of the McLellands’ children took the witness stand to testify about the impact of the revenge killings on them. Williams will be eligible for parole in 20 years, but the McLellands’ relatives said after the hearing they would attempt to prevent her ever being released so she would die in prison.

All three of the McLellands’ children thanked Williams for her testimony in her husband’s capital murder trial, but they all said their lives would be forever marred by the murders. They expressed relief at not being forced to endure another trial.

Nathan Foreman, Cynthia McLelland’s son by a previous marriage, spoke first. “I think it is right, and I’m glad you are going to spend time in jail,” he said.

J.R. McLelland told Williams she had opportunities to prevent the killings from occurring, even though she “didn’t pull the trigger.” He called her “weak” for not doing anything to save the victims. “I feel sorry for you, and your family,” he said.

Krista Ball, daughter of Michael McLelland, told Williams she could not understand what she did. “You got what you deserve,” she said. “We will try to go on with our lives.”

Williams, who wore hand and ankle cuffs as she sat next to her lawyers, listened intently to the testimony, and she occasionally nodded her head in agreement.

Ball said after the hearing the family agreed to the 40-year sentence because the prosecutors recommended it.

Kaufman County Judge Bruce Wood, who attended the hearing, said he was relieved to see the legal proceedings coming to an end with the plea deal. “If the family is able to reach peace with that, I’m not going to second guess them,” he said.

Paul Johnson, Williams’ lawyer, said after the hearing that much of what his client did to help commit the murders she did in a fog of prescription drug abuse. He said after her jailing and forced withdrawal from drugs she began to realize the enormity of her actions. “She is a much different person today from the one I met a year ago,” he said.

Williams testified during her husband’s capital murder trial that she drove the getaway car for him to kill the three victims. Anger about him losing his job as justice of the peace and his license to practice law after Hasse and McLelland convicted him of stealing county computer equipment in 2012 led him to plan the revenge murders during a drinking binge, she said.

Her husband planned to kill other Kaufman County officials whom had angered him, she testified.

Eric Williams is now on death row in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. After the mandatory appeal of the sentence is completed, he will be executed by lethal injection.

Kim Williams’ father died during the trial, and her elderly mother is in poor health. Williams filed for divorce from her husband after their arrests in 2013 on capital murder charges.

With Eric Williams on death row for Cynthia McLelland’s murder and Kim Williams on her way to prison for 40 years for Hasse’s killing in the courthouse parking lot, no other prosecution will be necessary in connection with the trio of shooting deaths, officials said.

Law enforcement officials said the killings of the prosecutors in Kaufman County represented an “unprecedented attack” on the nation’s criminal justice system.