OLYMPIA, Wash. — A Washington state prisoner mistakenly released early because of a computer error has been charged with killing his girlfriend in a car crash when he should have been behind bars, officials said Monday.

The revelation comes a week after Gov. Jay Inslee announced that a software coding error led as many as 3,200 offenders to be wrongly released since 2002. He has ordered a review of prisoner releases ahead of a broad fix to the software problem, which is expected early next month.

One of those freed was Robert Jackson, 38, who walked out of prison on Aug. 10, four months too soon. He had been convicted of robbery with a deadly weapon and should have been released on Dec. 6.

During that time, he fled from a Nov. 11 wreck in Bellevue that killed his girlfriend, Lindsay Hill, 35, who was riding in the car he was driving, according to prosecutors and Department of Corrections officials.

Jackson has been charged with vehicular homicide and felony hit-and-run and is being held in jail on $2 million bail, prosecutors said.

He was speeding and impaired by drugs or alcohol at the time of the accident, prosecutors said. In a filing seeking the bail, Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Amy Freedheim wrote that Jackson was “a flight risk and a grave danger to the community.”

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Department Secretary Dan Pacholke said he apologized to Hill’s family Sunday.

“Nothing I can say will bring back Ms. Hill. I deeply regret that this happened,” Pacholke said in a written statement.

Inslee called the news “absolutely gut-wrenching and heartbreaking.”

“There is nothing that can right this horrible wrong,” Inslee said in a written statement. “We must make sure nothing like this happens again.”

More than two dozen offenders erroneously released since June potentially need to be arrested and returned to prison because of an error the agency made on calculating sentences, officials said last week.

Officials said three of those ex-prisoners had committed new crimes, but they downgraded that number to two Monday, including Jackson.

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Authorities are searching for another offender who committed crimes during the period he should have been incarcerated.

Officials also are reviewing records to find any other offenders who may have committed new crimes.

Five prisoners released in error since June already are back behind bars. An additional 3,000 who are still incarcerated had inaccurate release dates.

Officials said most of the errors were 100 days or less. In some cases, inmates were released just a few days early, but at least one person who is still incarcerated had a release date that was off by about 600 days.


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