Woman who killed pimp as teenager released from Calif. prison under new juvenile-offender law

FILE - In this March 11, 2012 file photo provided by the California Department of Corrections shows Sara Kruzan. California Gov. Jerry Brown decided late Friday Oct. 25, 2013 not to take action on a state parole board's decision to grant parole to Sara Kruzan, thereby allowing the decision to go into effect, his spokesman Evan Westrup said Saturday. (AP Photo/California Department of Corrections, File) (The Associated Press)

FILE - This 2011 file photo, provided by the California Department of Corrections, shows Sara Kruzan. California Gov. Jerry Brown decided late Friday Oct. 25, 2013 not to take action on a state parole board's decision to grant parole to Sara Kruzan, thereby allowing the decision to go into effect, his spokesman Evan Westrup said Saturday. (AP Photo/California Department of Corrections, File) (The Associated Press)

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – A woman who was sentenced to life in prison as a teenager for killing her former pimp has been released under a new California law that allows for the resentencing of certain inmates convicted as juveniles.

State corrections officials say Sara Kruzan was paroled Thursday from Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla after serving 19 years.

She was 17 when she was sentenced for fatally shooting George Gilbert Howard in a Riverside motel room in 1994. She said Howard sexually assaulted her at an early age and she began working for him as a prostitute at 13.

Prosecutors said Kruzan was no longer working for Howard when she killed him.

In January, a Riverside County judge reduced Kruzan's conviction to second-degree murder, making her immediately eligible for parole.