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I have identified the case with high confidence. This is the Marie Robards case, covered on Forensic Files (Season 6, "Death Play," 2001). No death penalty was involved.This episode covers the 1993 poisoning murder of Steven "Steve" Robards, a 38-year-old Fort Worth, Texas postal worker, by his 16-year-old daughter, Marie Robards. In February 1993, Marie Robards, a tall, striking Fort Worth 16-year-old, murdered her 38-year-old father by slipping the poisonous chemical barium acetate into refried beans in his takeout Mexican food. His death was initially ruled a heart attack, but roughly 18 months later, after Marie confessed to her best friend Stacey High, retesting of preserved tissue samples using a gas chromatograph mass spectrometer revealed a massive dose of barium acetate. The jury split the difference, giving Marie a 28-year sentence, though she would have to spend at least seven years in state prison before being eligible for parole. (Some sources report the sentence as 27 years.)
Marie Robards was convicted of murder in a 1995 trial and sentenced to 27 years in prison, and was released on parole in 2003. She was granted parole in 2003 after serving approximately seven years of her sentence, and upon release changed her name, relocating and avoiding public attention. Public reporting (e.g. Quora and other sources) indicates she simply married and took her husband's surname rather than adopting a secret identity, and continued to live in the Fort Worth, Texas area. There have been no reported legal issues since her release, with her parole term completed years ago.
The case generated substantial, lasting media interest. The crime inspired Megan Abbott's 2018 novel "Give Me Your Hand," and was covered in episodes of Forensic Files, Redrum, and Deadly Women, as well as being the subject of Morbid: A True Crime Podcast in March 2024. It was also the subject of a widely cited long-form 1996 Texas Monthly investigative article, which author Skip Hollandsworth later revisited with an update in his 2025 book "She Kills: The Murderous Socialite, the Cross-Dressing Bank Robber, and Other True Crime Tales." The trial received significant media attention since Marie was a promising student, and patricide is a rare crime more commonly committed by men.
No death sentence was involved in this case; it does not apply. Marie Robards was convicted of murder and served approximately seven years before being paroled in 2003. She has since completed parole, remarried, and lives privately, reportedly still in the Fort Worth area, with no further reported legal troubles.