John Robert Martinez John Robert Martinez, one of four men charged with capital murder in the July 2007 death of 31-year-old Hidi Ann Gower of Copperas Cove, was sentenced to 30 years in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Institutional Division for criminal conspiracy to commit capital murder.

Martinez pleaded guilty in 27th District Court in September with Judge Joe Carroll presiding.

Martinez remained in jail until his court hearing. At his arrest after the murder last year, he was held on $1 million bond.

Law enforcement officials have said Mrs. Gower was the victim of a murder-for-hire plot instigated by her husband, Donald Dean Gower, who was 39 at the time of the crime. Officials learned that Gower had been planning to kill his wife so he could collect on an insurance policy she held.

Mrs. Gower was found July 4, 2007, in the Kempner VFW parking lot in east Lampasas County with multiple gunshot wounds. She was flown to Scott & White Memorial Hospital in Temple, where she was pronounced dead on arrival.

Her husband was found guilty of capital murder in August, and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Also found guilty and receiving an automatic life sentence without parole was Chaka Romain Johnson, 32, of Lampasas. He stood trial in June.

Two other suspects, Copperas Cove residents Jeremiah John Ellison, 25, and Regina Edwards- Sample, 25, bonded out of jail. Ellison's bond was lowered from $500,000 to $10,000, and Ms. Sample's bond was reduced to $2,500 from $500,000.

Ms. Sample has since had her charges dismissed by Carroll, who determined the defendant did not do anything to promote or assist in the offense.

Ellison is expected to enter a plea Jan. 9 on a charge of tampering with evidence and will be sentenced to an agreed punishment of seven years in the TDCJID, said Lampasas County District Attorney Larry Allison.