Daughter who pleaded guilty to helping her father plan to kill her mother released from prison

Correspondent Erin Moriarty and "48 Hours" investigate the death of a Corning, N.Y., mother of three and the investigation into what really happened in "Karrie's Choice," airing Saturday, February 8 at 10/9c on CBS.  

Karrie Neurauter, a former engineering student who confessed to helping her father kill her mother in August 2017, is now out of prison on parole. Authorities confirmed that Neurauter was released from Albion Correctional Facility on January 16.

In 2017, 19-year-old Karrie Neurauter was given an ultimatum by her father: help him kill her mother or risk him taking his own life. Karrie says that Lloyd Neurauter, 47, told her that he couldn't afford to pay child support to his ex-wife 46-year-old Michele Neurauter anymore. The former couple had three daughters -- one a minor who was still living with Michele. Lloyd Neurauter's solution was to murder Michele, Karrie says, and he had threatened to kill himself if Karrie did not help him. Karrie ultimately chose her father, driving him from his hotel in Rochester to her mother's house in Corning. After Lloyd strangled Michele, he asked Karrie to help him stage the scene as a suicide.

In 2018, Lloyd Neurauter pleaded guilty to first-degree murder. He told the court he had planned the murder and had manipulated Karrie into helping. He was sentenced to life without parole and is currently at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York. 

Steuben County District Attorney Brooks Baker supported a decision allowing Karrie to plead guilty to second-degree manslaughter in 2018. Baker said that although Karrie made a choice, he believed she was brainwashed by her father. Karrie, he believed, suffered from parental alienation syndrome – where one parent convinces the child to completely devalue the other parent, working to turn the child against the targeted parent.

Karrie was sentenced to one-to-three years in state prison.

Michele's mother, Jeanne Laundy doesn't blame her granddaughter and says Lloyd manipulated Karrie. Laundy stands by what she wrote in a letter to the Judge, back when Karrie was being sentenced. "I do not believe my daughter, Michele, would want a long prison sentence for her daughter," Laundy wrote. "… She would want her to eventually lead a happy life."