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By Mara Klecker
Star Tribune

A southern Minnesota woman accused of killing her husband is back in the state after being convicted in December of murdering a woman in Florida.

Lois Riess was booked Friday in the Steele County Detention Center in Owatonna on charges of first- and second-degree murder filed in Dodge County. She is accused of killing her husband, David, in March 2018 in their Blooming Prairie home.

The Florida Department of Corrections cleared the way in March for Riess to be sent to Minnesota. She received a life sentence in December after pleading guilty to first-degree murder in the fatal shooting of Pamela Hutchinson at a Fort Myers Beach condo in April 2018. She had befriended Hutchinson, according to the indictment, because they were similar in appearance.

Riess had driven to Florida after allegedly shooting and killing her husband. She eluded authorities for four weeks. Prosecutors in Florida had sought the death penalty but withdrew that possibility and accepted a plea for a life sentence.

Riess had previously been charged in Dodge County with forging $11,000 in checks from her husband’s business account.