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Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Maranger agreed to the arrangement, finding the five years of remaining prison time a suitable punishment for Lane’s inaction as her husband died in the home they shared in Athens, Ont. in October 2009.

Maranger said the most “tortured soul” in the whole case might be the couple’s son Alex, who wore a wire during the police homicide investigation into his mother.

“The stark fact that for me to get justice for my father I would have to lose my mother is an emotional complexity which I will be dealing with for a long time,” Alex Lane said in a victim impact statement. “This crime has splintered my family into two groups, and as a result I have lost connections with people I love.”

Alex’s younger brother Christian Lane added that his mother’s “actions and ignorance has only opened my eyes to the true darkness living within the hearts and minds.”

In her victim impact statement, Art Lane’s sister Marianne Paul said her brother had a right to die in dignity and surrounded by loved ones, not in dire poverty. The trial heard the power and water had been shut off to the Lanes’ home by the time of his death, and there was virtually no food in the house.

“She didn’t have the right to play God, to decide my brother’s life wasn’t worth living,” wrote Paul.

The trial had heard that Nancy Lane, a nurse, did laundry and went to a friend’s house instead of calling an ambulance. When she returned home to find emergency responders at the house, she demanded that paramedics leave her dead husband alone.