Deborah Jeane Palfrey "D.C. Madam" Suicide

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The "D.C. Madam" apologized to her mother and sister in suicide notes released Monday, telling them she couldn't bear going to prison for running an elite Washington prostitution ring and saw killing herself as the only "exit strategy."

"I cannot live the next 6-8 years behind bars for what you and I have come to regard as this 'modern day lynching,' only to come out of prison in my late '50s a broken, penniless and very much alone woman," Deborah Jeane Palfrey wrote in the note to her 76-year-old mother, Blanche.

Palfrey, 52, hanged herself with a nylon rope Thursday in a shed outside her mother's mobile home in the Florida Gulf Coast community of Tarpon Springs, northwest of Tampa. Her mother discovered the body.

Palfrey was convicted last month of running a prostitution service that catered to members of Washington's political elite, including Sen. David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican. She denied her escort service engaged in prostitution, saying that if any of the women engaged in sex acts for money, they did so without her knowledge.

She was free while she awaited sentencing on July 24 and had been staying with her mother.

Her suicide appeared to be premeditated. The note to her mother was dated April 25, nearly a week before she killed herself. Police said the notes were found on a night stand in the bedroom where she'd been staying. One of the notes said, "Do not revive. Do not feed under any circumstances."

In the note to her younger sister, Bobbie, Palfrey expressed her love and told her to "be strong for mom."

"Also, you must comprehend that there was no other way out, i.e., 'exit strategy,' other than the one I have chosen here," she wrote. "Know I am at peace, with complete certainty, I believe Dad is standing watch - prepared to guide me into the light."