SELMER, Tennessee (AP):

A woman who killed her preacher husband with a shotgun blast to the back as he lay in bed got a three-year prison sentence yesterday, but shemay spend only a few months in a mental hospital.

Mary Winkler, convicted of voluntary manslaughter in April, could have received up to six years for killing her husband, Matthew, in the parsonage where the family lived in March 2006.

But Judge Weber McCraw said Winkler must serve 210 days, or about seven months, of her sentence before she can be released on probation, but she gets credit for the five months she has already spent in jail.

That leaves only two months, and McCraw said up to 60 days of the sentence could be served in a mental-health facility. That means Winkler may not serve any more significant time in prison.

The judge denied Winkler's request for full probation or judicial diversion, which would have eventually cleared her record of the conviction.

Winkler, 33, went on trial for first-degree murder in April, but a jury found her guilty of the lesser crime of voluntary manslaughter after she testified she was physically and emotionally abused by her husband, Matthew Winkler.

Testified

She testified during her trial that her husband hit and kicked her, forced her to look at pornography and demanded sex she considered unnatural. Jurors were shown a pair of tall, platform shoes and a black wig Winkler said she was pressured to wear during sex.

Yesterday, however, Winkler testified, "I think of Matthew every day, and I'll always miss him and love him."

She turned to her husband's family and told them she was "so sorry this has happened." She said she understood they were angry with her and that she prayed every night for them to have peace.

Matthew Winkler, 31, was found fatally shot in the parsonage where the family lived in March 2006. A day later, his wife was arrested on the Alabama coast 340 miles (547 kilometers) away, driving the family minivan with her daughters inside.

Having nightmares

Earlier in the hearing, Matthew Winkler's mother, Diane Winkler, testified that the couple's daughters, ages nine, seven and two, were having nightmares about people with guns breaking into their house.

"You've never told your girls you're sorry. Don't you think you at least owe them that?" she asked.

She also criticised the abuse claims by Mary Winkler, who is fighting with her husband's parents for custody of the children.

"The monster that you have painted for the world to see? I don't think that monster existed," Diane Winkler said.

Mary Winkler's sister, Tabitha Freeman, called her "the best example of a good person I can think of" and asked the judge to give her a chance to be reunited with her children.

"She just needs them. She's not complete without them," Freeman said.

Before the judge announced the sentence, Mary Winkler pleaded with him for leniency and to be reunited with her three daughters.

"I ask for mercy and understanding, but I know whatever decision you reach today will be right," she told the judge, reading a statement from a yellow legal pad. "I ask you to please let me go home today and be with my children."

'I think of Matthew every day, and I'll always miss him and love him.'