SAN DIEGO — After 876 days in jail for a murder that prosecutors now say did not happen, Cynthia Sommer knew what she wanted: a fancy coffee drink at Starbucks, followed by a coconut-shrimp dinner at Bully's restaurant.
In the next few days, Sommer, 34, said at a Friday news conference, she plans to go shopping and spend time with her children. Her 16-year-old daughter was to reunite with her Friday night. She plans to travel to Michigan to see her three sons -- ages 8, 12 and 13.
Later, she said, she will decide how to pay her legal bills and whether to sue the district attorney for prosecuting her and overlooking evidence that ultimately cleared her of poisoning her Marine husband.
On Thursday, San Diego County Dist. Atty. Bonnie Dumanis moved to dismiss murder charges against Sommer, telling reporters that overlooked evidence and new scientific scrutiny had poked holes in the prosecution's assertion that she used arsenic to kill Sgt. Todd Sommer.
It was a startling conclusion to a murder prosecution built on a tabloid-style scenario of a scheming wife poisoning her younger husband, watching as he died and then -- soon after -- getting a $5,400 breast augmentation, partying and having sex with several partners.
Within hours of Dumanis' announcement, Sommer was free. "I never lost any hope, faith or anything," she said Friday. "You can never give up if you're innocent."
In announcing the dismissal of the charges Thursday, Dumanis said, "Justice has been done."
Sommer and her attorney, Allen Bloom, disagreed. "I don't think Bonnie Dumanis would agree if she was in jail wrongfully accused of murdering her husband," Sommer said.
In November a jury convicted Sommer of first-degree murder, but the trial judge overturned the verdict, ruling that prosecutors' description of her "lifestyle" was so inflammatory that it deprived Sommer of a fair trial.
She had been convicted of murder with special circumstances -- murder for hire and murder by poison -- that carried a mandatory life sentence without possibility of parole. Todd Sommer, 23, was stationed at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station and appeared to be in excellent health when he fell ill and died within days in 2002. Married in 1999, the couple had a son. Cynthia Sommer had three children by a previous marriage.
When she was arrested in 2005, she had moved to Florida.
