One man has admitted to a paying an assassin to kill the mother of his unborn baby while he was married to another woman.
Cornelius Green, the former principal of Carr Lane Visual and Performing Arts Middle School in St. Louis, has confessed to paying his friend $2,500 (around £2,000) to kill Jocelyn Peters, a third-grade teacher at Mann Elementary School with whom he’d been having an 'ongoing romantic relationship with', according to prosecutors.
Peters, who was just 30-years-old at the time, was seven months pregnant with his baby, court documents say.
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Last week (28 February), Green pleaded to guilty one count of murder-for-hire and one count of conspiracy to commit murder for the 2016 killing of Peters, according to Law & Crime.
In the plea agreement, prosecutors recommended that Green be sentenced to life in prison.
His co-defendant in the case, Phillip Cutler, is also accused of shooting the teacher in exchange for the $2,500 fee.
The criminal indictment states that Green had sent a text message to Cutler 16 February 2016, asking him to come from Oklahoma to Missouri at the end of March that year.
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"Ok, that will work, u gonna b sending the pacge (sic)," Cutler responded.
Then on 7 March, Green sent a UPS package containing the cash to Cutler with records stating that the former principal used the address of the middle school as the return address for the package - which Green had taken from the school.
The indictment reads: "It was further part of the conspiracy that on or about March 8, 2016, in Oklahoma, Cutler received the package sent by Green, accepting the cash in exchange for his planned killing of Peters and her unborn child."
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Later that month (22 March), Green travelled to Chicago and left Cutler with his car and the keys to Peters’ apartment, with prosecutors claiming he did so to have an alibi for the murder of Peters.
Two days after that (24 March), Cutler drove Green's car to Peter's apartment, entered her home with the keys Green had given him and 'shot her with a .38 caliber firearm in the head, using a potato as a silencer to muffle the sound of the shot'.
Green's attorney told NBC News: "Mr. Green understood his choices and made the one that did not compound the tragedy of this situation.”
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Green's sentencing is scheduled to take place later this year (5 June).
Cutler, who has pleaded not guilty to the same two charges as Green, was federally charged with murder for hire conspiracy and murder for hire and will start his trial next Monday (11 March).
Rhiannon Ingle