The man accused of killing his fiancé in a hit and run accident last month is reportedly one of two offenders who were accidentally released from prison early due to a sentencing issue and allegedly committed new crimes during the time period when they should have still been incarcerated.

Robert Jackson, who was arrested and charged with vehicular homicide and a hit-and-run that killed Bellevue resident and mother of two Lindsay Hill on Nov. 12 after witnesses reported seeing him, covered in blood, near the scene of the crash.

Jackson was originally released on Aug. 10, but should have been incarcerated until Dec. 6, according to the state Department of Corrections.

Department Secretary Dan Pacholke offered his deepest condolences on Dec. 27 to Hill’s family.

“Nothing I can say will bring back Ms. Hill. I deeply regret that this happened,” Pacholke said. “On behalf of the Department of Corrections, I apologize.”

The Department of Corrections and law enforcement officers are still searching for the other offender. While this offender did serve his sanctioned time for the new offense of attempt to elude law enforcement, due to the miscalculation, he will need to complete his full prison term for his original offense of assault, according to the department.

In a statement released on Dec. 28, Gov. Jay Inslee ordered the department to take immediate action to resolve the issue.

“These were serious errors with serious implications,” Inslee said. “When I learned of this I ordered DOC to fix this, fix it fast, and fix it right.”

The problem dates back to July 2002 when a state Supreme Court ruling required the department to apply “good time” credits earned in county jail to state prison sentences. The department changed its sentence computation coding to comply with the ruling; however the programming fix contained an inaccurate sequencing that over-credited good time for those offenders with sentencing enhancements.

A preliminary analysis by department indicates that as many as 3,200 offenders may have been released early over the course of 13 years. That represents approximately three percent of all releases during that 13-year time period. Early estimates indicate that the median number of days offenders were released from prison is 49 days before their correct release date.

The Department of Corrections first learned there was a problem in 2012 and began the process of a sequencing fix. However, for reasons that will be investigated, the sequencing fix was repeatedly delayed. A newly hired chief information officer at department recently became aware of the severity of the problem and alerted department leadership who then notified the governor.

“That this problem was allowed to continue for 13 years is deeply disappointing to me, totally unacceptable and, frankly, maddening,” Inslee said.

The governor ordered department to halt all releases of impacted offenders from prison until a hand calculation is done to ensure the offender is being released on the correct date. A broader software fix is expected to be in place by Jan. 7, 2016.