Merle Unger, who was handed life sentence for killing Hagerstown officer, released from prison

BALTIMORE -- A man sentenced in 1976 to life plus 40 years for killing an off-duty Hagerstown police officer has been freed.

A Talbot County judge on Wednesday ordered that the 73-year-old Merle Unger be released to a Baltimore re-entry program. 

Unger was convicted of murder in the shooting death of Donald Kline during a grocery store robbery.  

In 2013, the Court of Appeals found that the trial judge had given erroneous jury instructions in Unger's case, but he was retried and reconvicted. 

In a Summer hearing, 15 corrections officers testified in support of his release. 

"At this juncture, the court is persuaded that Mr. Unger has sincerely repented and concentrated on being of service to others," Circuit Court Judge Broughton M. Earnest wrote in an opinion, the Baltimore Banner reports.   

The Banner reports that in his time in prison, Unger got married and had two children. He also started a program in which he's sent cards and poems to police departments across the country and families who have lost colleagues and loved ones in the line of duty.