Alan Jones was released Thursday from the Wallkill Correctional Facility in Orange County. 

He was serving 5-15 years for strangling 11-year-old Erin Maxwell in their Palermo home back in 2008. But Jones only ended up serving two-thirds of his sentence.

His charge was reduced from second degree murder with depraved indifference to manslaughter. 

Oswego County District Attorney Gregory Oakes, with other local leaders, wrote letters to the parole board over the past 5 years to keep Jones in prison for life. They say they will keep fighting for stricter laws to hold people like Jones accountable and protect children like Maxwell.

"She hasn't been forgotten," Oakes says. "There are people that care, and even though the adults in her life who were supposed to care for her in her life mistreated her, abused her and neglected her, this community cares about her tremendously, and there are people who carry on her memory and what to do right in her name."

The DA says Jones will be under parole supervision for 5 years.