Cyntoia Denise Brown, a woman serving a life sentence for murdering a man who hired her for sex when she was 16 years old, has been granted clemency.  According to Tennessee’s Republican Gov. Bill Haslam, Brown, now 30, will be released to parole supervision on Aug. 7 after serving 15 years in prison. Following years of widespread attention from criminal justice advocates, celebrities, and politicians, Haslam’s office granted the long-awaited clemency on Monday.

On Aug. 6, 2004, 43-year-old real estate agent Johnny Allen picked up the 16-year-old Brown at a drive-in theater in Nashville, Tennessee. Once they were at his house, Allen reached for what Brown believed was a gun. Police stated she shot Allen in the back of the head at close range with a gun she brought to rob him. Brown later testified she stole so she wouldn’t return empty-handed to her pimp, Cutthroat.

When authorities caught Brown attempting to flee, a juvenile court found her competent to be tried as an adult. She was convicted of murder and robbery and sentenced to life in prison. When news of her exceptionally harsh punishment was released, celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Lebron James came to her defense. Brown’s case was used to shed light on all underaged sex-trafficking victims.

To explain Brown’s harrowing life story and what exactly put her in bed with a man 27 years her senior, we’d have to go all the way back to before she was born. Her mother testified she drank a fifth of whiskey a day while she was pregnant, which resulted in Brown showing signs of fetal alcohol syndrome as an infant. It’s an illness that often has disastrous consequences for children, including delayed brain development, reduced reasoning skills, and an inability to control impulses–evidence that the jury which convicted her in 2004 never saw.

“Then as a teenager, she did have a nice adoptive family,” CNN anchor Stacy Case, who had been investigating reports of sex trafficking in Tennessee when she came across Brown’s story, said. “But because of her experiences, she veered and ended up on the wrong side of the law–and ended up being sex-trafficked. If she had grown up differently, if she had had other opportunities, it may not have ended up that way.”

Since her initial sentencing, Brown has spent all of her adulthood in prison. “She is light years today, as a woman, different from the traumatized 16-year-old that she was,” says Founder/CEO of non-profit End Slavery Tennessee Derri Smith. “She’s mentoring…troubled youth, working on her college degree, she is planning a nonprofit so she can help other young people.” Brown worked tirelessly in prison to receive her associate’s degree from Lipscomb University in 2015, and, according to Smith, has been studying for her Bachelor’s degree as well.

Brown expressed her thanks in a statement released Monday by her legal team. “I am thankful for all the support, prayers, and encouragement I have received. We truly serve a God of second chances and new beginnings,” Brown said. “Let today be a testament to His saving grace.”