Des Moines, Iowa – Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds has rejected a request to commute the life sentence of a 74-year-old grandmother serving a life sentence for her role in a 1979 murder-for-hire plot.

Judy White has served 41 years in prison since her conviction in 1979 of conspiring to murder 39-year-old Ady Jensen at his parents’ home in West Branch, The Gazette in Cedar Rapids reported.

Authorities said the plot also involved White’s husband, Robert Kern, an insurance agent who sold a life insurance policy on Jensen to the victim’s wife, Jeanne Jensen.

The plot involved a hitman to kill Ady Jensen so that Jeanne Jensen could collect $50,000 in life insurance and split it with her co-conspirators.

Reynolds told White in a letter that while White’s rehabilitation in prison was laudable, it did not make her eligible for parole “given the serious and violent nature of Mr. Jensen’s death.”

White presented 60 letters of support for her commutation and had argued that she had been promised a shorter sentence under a 1982 plea deal. She has already served more time than anyone else involved in the plot, she said.

Kern also was convicted and sentenced to life but died in 2016. Jeanne Jensen pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder and was sentenced to 10 years. The accused hit man, Andrew Oglevie, was acquitted in 1983.