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Wife of slain soldier gets life sentence
Lillie-Eubank
Lillie Eubank

The wife of a slain Fort Stewart soldier, who pleaded guilty to the crime in early June, was sentenced Monday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney James Durham confirmed that Lillie Eubank will serve life in prison for her role in the death of her husband, Army Spc. John Eubank, in 2013.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Rafferty presented testimony during her plea hearing in early June saying that the government could prove that she drove her husband; her brother, Carl Evan Swain; and her daughter, Angel Wells, to a wooded area at Holbrook Pond on Fort Stewart.

Rafferty said Eubank’s husband was under the impression that the two men were going to go hog hunting. Instead, Swain lured John Eubank into the woods and beat him to death with a baseball bat.

Eubank’s wife later returned to pick up her brother and the bloody bat and went home to sleep while her brother packed up her husband’s belongings and left town on a Greyhound bus.

Lillie Eubank admitted to scheming with her brother to murder so she could collect $500,000 in death benefits.

Swain was found guilty of murder and conspiracy to commit murder for money in the 2013 killing of his brother-in-law during a jury trial in March. In May, Swain was sentenced to three life terms.

Lillie Eubank originally entered a not-guilty plea and had her case severed from Swain’s trial.

Durham confirmed that during Monday’s sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge William T. Moore Jr. called Eubank an “evil person” for her participation in the murder, and then gave her the life sentence. Federal sentences have no parole.

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