WI foots surgery bill for inmate

MADISON, Wis. (AP) - The state Department of Corrections is paying for a series of expensive facial reconstruction surgeries for a man who killed his girlfriend with a shotgun and then turned it on himself.

Daryl Strenke pleaded guilty to second-degree homicide for the June 2002 shooting of Samantha Verby of Comstock, and is serving 30 years in prison. Strenke self-inflicted would makes it impossible to eat or speak normally.

Strenke's mother tells the Wisconsin State Journal the Columbia Correctional Institution inmate will start surgeries later this month. A Department of Corrections spokesman wouldn't confirm it, but says any such work would only be funded by the state if considered medically necessary.

Verby's mother, Alice Verby of Turtle Lake, says Strenke should have to live with his injuries as the consequence of his crime.