A former Salina man has been sentenced to life in prison without parole for fatally poisoning his wife with nicotine in 1994 and collecting on her life insurance policy.

Paul Marshal Curry, formerly of Salina, was sentenced Friday for murder more than two decades after his wife, Linda Curry, died in bed.

Curry was a suspect but the case went cold and he moved to Kansas after collecting more than $500,000 on his wife’s life insurance policy.

Curry was arrested in 2010 in Salina where he had rebuilt his life and worked as a building official. He was hired in March of 2010 to be the City of Salina building official. It came as a shock when he was arrested less than a year later in Salina, in November 2010, and extradited to California.

During the trial in Orange County Superior Court, Curry’s former wife testified that she was often ill while married to Curry, but after they divorced, her health improved.