WILSONVILLE Liysa Northon, 50, who was sentenced to 12 years in prison for manslaughter after shooting her husband in a Lostine River campground, is due to be released from Coffee Creek Correctional Facility next week.

The scheduled release on Tuesday, Oct. 9, will come 12 years to the day after the shooting death of Chris Northon on Oct. 9, 2000, while he was either asleep or passed out in his sleeping bag at the remote Shady Campground about 16 miles from Lostine up the Lostine River canyon.

Originally charged with murder, Liysa Northon pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter in the midst of her Wallowa County Circuit Court trial in July 2001, and received a 12-year prison sentence. She has served her sentence at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Wilsonville, which confirmed her pending release date this week.

Northon contends she was the victim of domestic violence in her marriage. Since her conviction she unsuccessfully sued her trial defense attorney, the district attorney and the superintendent of the prison in which she was being held.

Northon married former Wallowa County Chieftain editor Rick Swart, who now lives and works in the Willamette Valley, in prison on Sept. 18, 2011.

The controversial Northon case came to national consciousness with the publication of a book about it titled A Heart Full of Lies, by best-selling Northwest true crime writer Ann Rule in 2003.

In July 2011 the Seattle Weekly published a story titled, Ann Rules Sloppy Storytelling, by Rick Swart, portraying Liysa Northon as a victim of spousal abuse and a failed judicial system and accusing Rule of disregarding facts.