Paula Cooper: Youngest Death Row Inmate Freed

A woman who became America's youngest death row inmate has been released after 28 years behind bars.

Paula Cooper, 43, left the Indiana Rockville Correctional Facility quietly in a state vehicle, said Department of Corrections spokesman Doug Garrison.

Her sentence for the murder of a 78-year-old Bible teacher had enraged human rights activists and drew a plea for clemency from Pope John Paul II.

When asked where Cooper was being taken, Mr Garrison said: "We have something arranged, but that's not something I can talk about."

Cooper was 15 when she used a butcher's knife to stab Ruth Pelke 33 times during her lunch break from high school in 1985.

She was convicted, along with three other teenage girls, and sentenced to death.

Cooper was given the harshest penalty because she was the ringleader, said Jack Crawford, who was the county prosecutor at the time.

Her accomplices served prison terms and have been released.

Shortly after Cooper was sentenced, it was ruled that young people who were under 16 when they committed a crime could not be sentenced to death.

Indiana legislators passed a state law raising the minimum age limit for execution from 10 years to 16, and in 1988, the state's high court set Cooper's death sentence aside.

Instead, she was ordered to serve 60 years in prison. This was later reduced due to her behaviour in jail, where she earned a bachelor's degree.

She will remain on parole for a few years after her release, Mr Garrison said.

The prison gave Cooper \$75 (£48) to help her make a fresh start.

"The question is can she still make a positive contribution? I hope she can," Mr Crawford said.

In 2005, the US Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional to execute anyone who is younger than 18 years when they commit an offence.