A Houston woman is charged in an alleged murder-for-hire scheme after federal authorities said she plotted to have a family member killed.
The FBI, in documents filed in U.S. District Court in Springfield, said Leta F. Douglas, 51, of 212 E. Chestnut St., was arrested at her home Friday following an investigation that began Jan. 26. Authorities said Douglas’ scheme included contacting her ex-husband via priority mail for assistance and exchanging $2,000 in cash Feb. 9 to an undercover officer in Houston’s Walmart Supercenter parking lot.
According to an affidavit, Douglas pulled into the parking lot in her maroon Toyota car at 5:30 p.m. as agreed and parked near a traffic cone in the parking lot and left her lights on as a Missouri State Highway Patrol surveillance team — equipped with a video recording device — looked on. An undercover agent, wearing an audio recording device, approached her vehicle and entered into the front passenger’s seat. Douglas provided a photograph of the relative, presented a hand-drawn map to the residence and described the house’s layout.
A transcript released in court documents laid out Douglas’ intentions:
“Do you want her dead?” the agent asked.
“I don’t really have any choice. I don’t really want it that way, but that’s the way it’s gonna be,” Douglas said.
“You want her dead?” the agent asked.
“Yeah,” she said.
“Do you want it painful? You just want it done?” the agent inquired.
Douglas replied with a single word: “Yeah.”
Four days later, officers from several agencies surrounded her home in downtown Houston near Second and Chestnut streets and arrested her. She remains in federal custody and will appear before a federal magistrate Thursday.
Priority request: State and federal agents said they learned of the plot after Douglas sent a priority envelope in late January to her ex-husband’s parents in Nebraska. Court documents said the letter, which was intended for her husband until about 18 years ago, contained a message for him: She needed help and asked that she be called.
The man placed the call and declined the offer. Concerned of Douglas’ intentions, he later called the Nebraska State Patrol, which notified authorities in Missouri.
The next day, the ex-husband, with the phone call being recorded by authorities, called Douglas and said he might have located someone to carry out the murder, according to the court filing.
The ex-husband asked if she really wanted the killing done: “No, I really don’t. But I don’t know what else to do other than scare her. And that’s only a temporary fix,” she said.
Authorities say they believe the motive was financial.
Douglas offered to use proceeds from a tax refund to pay the hit man, according to the affidavit filed by the FBI. On Feb. 2, she again called the ex-husband to put the plan into action and later mailed a picture of the target and a map to the house. Four days later, the undercover agent contacted Douglas to make plans for the parking lot meeting.
Having received a promise of a text message when the murder was done, Douglas left the lot and was back at her home in five minutes.