TACOMA, Wash. - Pierce County Prosecutor Gerry Horne on Wednesday said he is taking the death penalty off the table in exchange for a guilty plea, and life in prison without the possibility of parole, for Daniel Tavares in the shooting deaths of a young couple.

Horne made the announcement at a news conference Wednesday afternoon

Tavares, 41, is charged with aggravated first-degree murder in the Nov. 17 shooting deaths of Brian and Beverly Mauck.

Relatives of the Maucks who attended the news conference said they supported Horne's decision and that it will be a huge relief not to have to sit through years of appeals.

"I'm elated. My family is elated," said Brian's sister, Jennifer Heibrun. "I think this gives us the opportunity to close this very sad chapter of our life and start to try to move forward a little bit."

Beverly's mother, Karen Slater, said putting Tavares to death would have been giving him an easy out for what he's done.

"I didn't want him to be free of suffering," she said. "I want him to suffer until he dies. I think this is the best decision possible. I support the prosecutor, Jerry Horne."

Other family members who did support the death penalty were not at the conference.

Tavares initially pleaded not guilty to the killings, which investigators say were motivated by an insult and a $50 debt.

He was released from prison in Massachusetts in June after serving a 16-year manslaughter sentence for killing his mother.

Prosecutors there had tried to keep Tavares behind bars for allegedly assaulting two prison guards near the end of his sentence, but a judge released him.

He moved to Graham and lived next to the Maucks, who were found shot to death in their own home.

Tavares initially told investigators he heard gunshots while he was in bed with his wife at their home. He also described two men and a red truck he said he saw outside. "These various statements were later acknowledged to be lies," prosecutors said in the charging papers.

His wife, Jennifer Tavares, has been charged with rendering criminal assistance, a gross misdemeanor, for lying to investigators. She initially told police her husband was with her when they heard gunfire.

Only Charles Campbell, Westley Allen Dodd, Jeremy Sagastegui, and Robert Elledge have been put to death in Washington since the penalty was reinstated in the late 1970s.