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Texas writer freed after 5 months in jail

HOUSTON, Texas (CNN) -- A Texas writer who spent 168 days behind bars rather than hand over her notes and tape recordings about a high-society murder case to a federal grand jury said Friday she plans to "finish my story" -- even if it means returning to jail.

Vanessa Leggett was freed Friday, after the term of the grand jury that subpoenaed her materials expired.

However, prosecutors could try to impanel another grand jury, which could subpoena her records again and put her back in jail if she refuses to comply.

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Her incarceration "was like no other experience in my life, naturally," Leggett said on CNN's "The Point."

"To not be able to make your own decisions, to have the government not only watch but dictate every move that you make is not an existence that I would wish on anyone," she said.

Once a judge ordered her jailed in July, said Leggett, she didn't look back.

"Before I surrendered, sure, I had doubts," she said "But once I was resolved in my decision, I didn't waver. What made serving my time easier is being confident and assured in my decision."

For more than four years, Leggett has been researching a book about the murder of Doris Angleton, a wealthy Houston, Texas, woman found shot to death in her home in April 1997, two months after filing for divorce from her husband, Robert.

Authorities alleged that Robert Angleton had his wife killed in a murder-for-hire scheme, using his brother, Roger, as the triggerman.

Roger Angleton committed suicide in the Harris County jail before he could go to trial, leaving behind a note exonerating his brother -- a confession authorities viewed with suspicion.

After Robert Angleton was acquitted of murder charges in state court, a federal grand jury was convened to investigate. Leggett's attorney, Mike DeGuerin, said prosecutors have said they are looking at federal murder, gambling and money laundering charges in connection with the Angleton case.

Leggett, a freelance writer and lecturer at the University of Houston, has interviewed many of the key players in the case, including both brothers and Roger Angleton's wife, Jennifer Manning. The Justice Department sought notes and tape recordings from interviews she conducted while researching the book. She refused.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with federal prosecutors, upholding a lower court decision that Leggett must hand over the materials. She currently has an appeal of that ruling pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Leggett contends that the subpoena is "overreaching" and unnecessary. She said federal prosecutors had already obtained her interview with Roger Angleton and that most of the other people she interviewed had already appeared before the grand jury or been questioned by law enforcement. Others are investigators or prosecutors involved in the case, she said.

"It seems that they could get the same information from those sources," she said. "Surely, the government has far more resources than I than to acquire such information."

Federal prosecutors contended that, Leggett, as a freelance writer rather than a journalist working for an established media outlet, did not enjoy the protection of laws guarding press freedoms.

But Leggett said she can substantiate that she intended to disseminate her information when she began her research -- which would distinguish her from someone claiming to be a writer solely to avoid complying with a subpoena.

She also bristled at suggestions that her decision to go to jail was designed to generate publicity to get her book published.

"I did not want to get a publisher's attention by going to jail, and I think that's really ludicrous," she said.