A Texas inmate who murdered her lover and hired help to encase him in a concrete grave in his Garland backyard forged a judge’s signature this year in a scheme to get out of prison.

“She almost got out,” said lawyer Josh Healy, who originally prosecuted Harris in the murder case. He called the fake paperwork the latest twist in a crime saga that’s “like a movie.”

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice learned of the suspicious paperwork in January and called Dallas County to inquire about its accuracy, a spokesman said Friday. He said Harris, 43, is now being held at a “higher custody level” at the Murray Unit in Gatesville.

The Texas Rangers did not immediately respond Friday to questions about a possible investigation.

Harris, a licensed nurse, shot Michael Giles, her on-again, off-again lover of a decade, in the back of the head in 2006.

She then cooked up an elaborate ploy to cover up the killing of Giles, a military retiree who lived in Garland.

Harris hired a 13-year-old and his uncle to dig Giles’ grave under the ruse that she was installing a pond, then got a man to pour a 3-by-15-foot concrete slab on top.

She posed as Giles in emails and texts, telling his family he was in New Mexico and needed some time away. Prosecutors say she even had a new boyfriend pretend to be Giles, dressed up in bandages after a supposed car accident, so she could gain access to Giles’ financial accounts.

Authorities excavated Giles’ body from his own backyard in 2007.

Garland police arrested Harris, but while out on bond she paid a teenager to confess to the crime, authorities say.

Police didn’t buy it. Neither did prosecutors, who took her to trial in 2009. Harris ended up taking a plea deal for 50 years in prison.

“It’s the craziest case I ever tried in my life,” said Healy, the former prosecutor now in private practice as a defense attorney.

In her failed bid to get out of prison, Harris faked state District Judge Amber Givens-Davis’ signature on a form to “correct” her sentence to eight years. It’s unclear how she obtained the form while behind bars.

Givens-Davis declined to comment.

But the former judge who presided over Harris’ trial said he wasn’t surprised by her latest scheme.

“That’s exactly her MO,” Andy Chatham said.

He called her a “classic con artist.”

“There is absolutely nothing about Harris that will cause her to take responsibility,” Chatham said. “No regret. No remorse. She’ll do anything without regard to morals.”

Lawyers say Snapped, a true crime series on the Oxygen network, has taken an interest in the case.

Harris is scheduled for parole review in 2033.

Staff writer Jennifer Emily contributed to this report.