Fmr. Navy officer killed in prison

FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kan. (WAVY) - A former Navy lieutenant commander, convicted in a murder-for-hire plot, was killed in prison just weeks before he was to be released.

Michael Fricke died of his injuries after another inmate attacked him with a baseball bat. The fight happened on the afternoon of July 24, while several inmates were playing sports, according to Fort Leavenworth spokeswoman Rebecca Steed. Fricke died on July 29 after his family granted the hospital permission to take him off life support.

Fricke was set to be freed from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas this summer, after serving 16 years of a 30 year sentence for murder.

Fricke admitted to hiring a hit man to kill his wife Roxanne, in a Virginia Beach grocery store parking lot in 1988.