A former fashion designer who insists she was railroaded by prosecutors and poorly served by her defense lawyers was sentenced Friday to 73 and a half years in prison for the 1999 disappearance and presumed murder of her boyfriend's estranged wife.  

The lengthy sentence comes as no surprise to Henning, who was convicted of murder and kidnapping despite her out-of-court insistence that she was not involved. She told Courttv.com during a telephone interview late Thursday that she was prepared to be sentenced to the maximum but would continue to fight for exoneration. 

"I expect the judge to give me 87 years, 100 years or 500 years," Henning said during a collect call she placed from an Albuquerque jail. "I expect the judge to just continue to do what he's been doing to me."  She will be eligible for parole in 30 years.

Henning, 49, was dating self-styled genius Diazien Hossencofft in September 1999 when Hossencofft's estranged wife, bank teller Girly Chew Hossencofft, went missing. After Henning met Diazien Hossencofft following a UFO-believers' meeting that summer, friends noticed a marked change in her personality and beliefs.  

The victim, Girly Chew Hossencofft

Several said she started promoting conspiracy theories, including one involving alien reptilian creatures who secretly controlled the U.S. government by assuming human appearances. Concerned, Henning's former boyfriend even had a private investigator check out Hossencofft's lengthy resume and warned her that almost everything he claimed on it was a lie.  

At about the same time, Girly Chew Hossencofft and her friends were also becoming concerned. The Malaysian-born woman told friends and an FBI agent in the weeks leading up to her disappearance that if anything happened to her they should immediately focus on her estranged husband.  

A search of Girly Hossencofft's apartment after she disappeared on Sept. 10, 1999, showed signs of foul play, including the presence of blood. Soon, clothes and a gray tarp with her blood on it were discovered strewn on a remote stretch of highway.  

Police built a circumstantial case against Diazien Hossencofft, a 37-year-old con man who told wealthy women he was an ex-CIA agent and doctor who had developed a cure for cancer. Faced with a potential death sentence if convicted, Hossencofft pleaded guilty to murder in January 2002 and complied with his agreement to tell police whatever they wanted to know.  

The boyfriend, Diazien Hossencofft

He told them Linda Henning wasn't involved and that it was his fault that her blood was found in his wife's apartment. He claimed he inadvertently implicated Henning when he used a vial of Henning's blood to throw off investigators.  

A third alleged co-conspirator reputed to have militia ties was implicated by Diazien Hossencofft as the actual killer, but a grand jury indicted the man, 52-year-old Bill Miller, only on evidence tampering charges.  

Despite Hossencofft's explanation of how Henning's blood got at the crime scene, she was tried last fall for murder, kidnapping, conspiracy, perjury and other charges. Jurors did not buy Hossencofft's story and convicted Henning of charges that could have sent her to death row. Jurors spared her life.  

Henning criticized her own court-appointed lawyers Thursday. Instead of challenging DNA testing on crime-scene blood — tests that consumed the evidence, making defense tests impossible — defense lawyers decided that Hossencofft was Henning's best chance of acquittal.  

Hossencofft testified for the defense that he took a vial of Henning's blood to the crime scene to contaminate evidence, believing that if he diluted the blood with bleach it would not be traced back to Henning. Hossencofft claimed that Henning's blood had to be used because a vial of another woman's blood he grabbed from his refrigerator first broke in his pocket when he jumped in a car in a hurry.  

Prosecutors argued successfully that the story was concocted by Hossencofft to protect Henning. Henning said she cannot disagree with the prosecution on that point, but she denies putting him up to it or condoning it.  

Judge W. John Brennan had assured Henning he would go easier on her if she would just tell authorities where they can find Girly Chew Hossencofft's body, which was never located. Henning insists she doesn't know because she was not involved.  

On Wednesday, Brennan conducted a hearing at the request of prosecutors that included testimony from a psychic and a criminal investigator about alleged statements the investigator made about knowing the whereabouts of Girly Chew Hossencofft's body.  

The investigator — who worked for Bill Miller, the man Diazien Hossencofft said he recruited to kill his wife — denied the psychic's claim that he once said he knew where the body could be found.  

Miller's evidence tampering trial is scheduled to begin Monday. Henning's appeal will be filed sometime after that.  

"I thoroughly believe that with all the plea bargains that Linda was offered and the fact that her immediate reaction was not to accept any of them, she is absolutely innocent," said Stephen Zachary of New York, the former boyfriend who tried to warn Henning about Hossencofft.  

"The tragedy is that two lives have been taken by Diazien Hossencofft," Zachary said. "Girl's and now Linda's."

According to the Albuquerque Tribune, Henning is now the 14th woman serving time in New Mexico prisons for first-degree murder.