After suffering from the hell of American death row, she says she has not committed a crime, Sonia "Sunny" Jacobs finds an idyllic and healing in rural Ireland. But in the final cruel twist, her shelter took her life.

Jacobs, 78, and her paramedic Kevin Kelly were found dead after a fire in a cabin near Casra Village in Galway County on Tuesday.

It was a tragic ending of an extraordinary life, recorded in books, dramas and films, and made Jacob a symbol of a second chance and a fight against the death penalty.

Emergency services were warned at 6.19 a.m. and pronounced as Jacobs and Kelly, a local man in his 30s, died at the scene. Police are inspecting the bungalow to determine the cause of the fire.

The news sparked grief and tribute from Jacobs’ friends and supporters. "The sunny people are advocates of justice and guidance on the light," she said in a statement. "The sunny crossing point, the wind and the sails. Your memory is a blessing for us."

In 1976, Jacobs was a 28-year-old American hippie with her 10-month-old daughter, Christina, nine-year-old son Eric, her boyfriend, Jesse Tafero, Christina's father and acquaintance Walter Rhodes traveling in Florida.

At a highway rest stop, two policemen approaching the car were fatally shot. Three adults and two children were driven away in a police car and were later arrested.

In the plea deal, Rhodes blamed Jacobs and Taffro for the murder, and although they both remained innocent, they were sentenced to death. Rhodes later admitted to the murder, although he then retreated.

Tafero was executed in 1990. A broken electric chair means killing him took several attempts and 13 minutes. It was reported that flames shot out from his head.

Jacobs spent 17 years in prison, including five years in a small windowless cell, on death row and solitary confinement. The Florida Supreme Court sentenced Jacobs to life imprisonment in 1981. She was awarded a new trial in 1992 and was released after accepting a plea agreement.

Legally, she was not exempted, Ellen McGarrahan, who investigated the case in her book Two Truths and Lies, said the trial jury heard evidence from both physical and witnesses that Jacobs and Tafero were shooters.

Her parents died in a plane crash during Jacobs' imprisonment, further causing her children. Christina was raised in foster care and then in his mid-teenage years he was a pizza deliveryman.

Jacobs tried to rebuild his bond with his children and lived without pain, drawing in part from the yoga and meditation that kept her in prison.

In 1998, she visited Ireland to speak at an Amnesty International event and met Peter Pringle, who was sentenced to death and sentenced to 15 years in prison for murdering two Gardaí, John Morley and Henry Byrne during a bank robbery before being revoked and released.

Jacobs married Pringle and lived with him in the Irish-speaking Gaeltacht area in Galway. They grow vegetables, share houses with dogs, cats, hens, ducks and goats, and memoirs published in each published.

Jacobs' story was included in the play The Exempted Drama, performed in New York, Edinburgh and London, and turned into a film in 2005.

Jacobs held talks to build the Sunny Centre Foundation, and despite its insignificant income, shared an apparently happy life with Pringle. "Everyone is challenged in life, you can go back the rest of your life, or you can decide to move on. That's the choice I made."

Pringle died in 2023 at the age of 84. Jacobs has suffered from health and disability in recent years, but neighbors say she has remained optimistic and mentally keen in her adopted home country.

"The stones in western Ireland made me feel rooted; it made me feel helpless," Jacobs once told the interviewer.