‘AN ANIMAL’

NYC’s ‘Black Widow’ Killer Released From Prison

Barbara Kogan pleaded guilty to hiring a hitman to kill her estranged and wealthy husband in 1990.

New York’s “black widow” killer is a free woman again. Barbara Kogan—who hired a hitman to shoot her millionaire husband outside his mistress’ building in 1990, and then spent two decades living off his life-insurance money in Puerto Rico—has been released on parole, the New York Post reports. Details of the case fueled lurid tabloid headlines: Kogan had her divorce lawyer arrange the hit, and she was getting her hair done when Kogan was ambushed on an Upper East Side sidewalk. After her 2008 arrest, Kogan pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 12 years in prison. The girlfriend, Mary-Louise Hawkins, asked that the 67-year-old not be granted parole, calling her “an animal.”