A former naval officer who served 16 years in prison after admitting to hiring hit men to kill his wife died after an altercation with another prison inmate at the Department of Defense's only maximum-security prison.

Navy Lt. Commander Michael Fricke confessed to hiring two hitmen to kill Roxanne Fricke in 1988.

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"They followed her and waited for her to come out and gunned her down," Roxanne's sister, Beverly Suain, told Channel 4 last month.

After his conviction in 1994, Fricke was sent to Fort Leavenworth, Kan. While he was sentenced to 30 years, the family got a letter announcing Fricke would be released in August near Daytona Beach, where his son now lives. Members of the victim's family still live in Orange Park.

A statement from the U.S. Army said Fricke got into an altercation with another inmate on the recreation field on July 24 and was struck with a baseball bat. Fricke remained hospitalized at a local military facility until his family decided to take him off life support. He died on Thursday.

The identity of the inmate who struck Fricke was not released as the incident was still under investigation.