SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) – Jill Allen would have turned fifty years old in February.

But she only made it to 24.

“We should have celebrated her 50th birthday this February,” her mother Andrea Myler said Tuesday. “Instead I put flowers on her grave. I hate seeing her name on the cemetery.”

In 1996, Jill Allen’s life came to an abrupt end. She was brutally murdered inside her apartment in North Salt Lake.

It took four years after her murder, but a jury found her husband, Paul Allen guilty of having her murdered.

Allen offered Joey Wright and George Taylor money to do the job. It was their testimony that helped prosecutors get a conviction.

At Taylor’s parole hearing Tuesday, Jill Allen’s mother wondered why after twenty-failed attempts to kill her, he finally went through with it.

“It was you who decided that she lived or died,” said Myler. “No matter how much pressure Paul or Joey put on you, it was still your decision. I’ve spent long hours by the terror you caused her when you came out of nowhere and attacked her,” she said.  Why when she was screaming out, that you didn’t just run away? Just let her live.”

Instead, Taylor chose to use a baseball bat and beat Jill around the head.  Her injuries were so severe the family had a closed casket at her funeral.

“I am sorry,” Taylor responded. “I ask those same questions that you just posed over and over and over and I have…the answers that I come up with were lacking.”

She said her daughter’s death haunted her for many years. Myler said it took 5-years to “breathe” without anxiety. Myler said her family was sentenced to life without Jill.

“And even as horrible as it was to being married to Paul, Jill loved life,” the mother said. “Everyone loved to be around her. She would make us all laugh. We never got to see the goodness she would accomplish in her life.”

Taylor regretted his actions that day in 1996.  He said he was unemployed and in debt and the ten thousand dollars promised him would help his family.

After their sentencing, Myler refused to forgive any of the men involved. Tuesday was different.

“I think today, I can honestly say I forgive you,” she told Taylor. “But that doesn’t mean you should only serve 25-years.” 

The entire board of pardons will review his case over the next few weeks and decide on Allen’s parole.