A former Missouri middle school principal confessed to hiring a hitman to take out his pregnant lover.
Cornelius Green, who was once the top administrator at Carr Lane Visual and Performing Arts Middle School in St. Louis, MO, owned up to having a co-worker he was romantically involved with killed.
Married middle school principal takes out hit on pregnant girlfriend
Green admitted to orchestrating the 2016 assassination of Jocelyn Peters, a teacher at the school with whom he was involved romantically.
Green’s admission came when he agreed to plead guilty to one count each of murder-for-hire and conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire in court last week.
The plot began in late 2015, when Peters informed Green that she was expecting his child. Green was married at the time and reportedly involved with with “multiple” other women.
Instead of being overjoyed by the news, the pregnancy reveal prompted Green to allegedly tap into the school’s funds and hire a hitman to eliminate his pregnant girlfriend.
According to the New York Post, court records indicate that Green stole $2,500 from the school in order to pay Phillip Cutler, a man Green knew from his childhood, to carry out a hit.
Peters was in the 27th week of her pregnancy when Cutler carried out the heinous crime in March 2016.
It was reported that Cutler, who traveled from Oklahoma to St. Louis to fulfill the contract, used a potato as a makeshift silencer while shooting Peters in the head in her bed after breaking into her home.
Green attempted to craft an alibi by heading to Chicago on an Amtrak train, leaving Cutler the keys to his car and and a copy of the keys to Peters’ apartment.
When he returned to St. Louis, Green went straight to the apartment, and was the one who reported Peter’s death to police.
How a middle school principal’s murder-for-hire plot was discovered
At the time he “falsely pretending that he had no knowledge of the circumstances leading her death.”
However, Green’s cell phone records managed to connect both himself and Cutler to the crime.
Green had sent Cutler a text on Feb. 29, 2016, setting up the slaying, which the killer responded to by asking for the $2,500 payment.
Police were able to determine that the former educator used the school’s address on the package he sent the money to Cutler in.
After Peters had been killed, Cutler also called him to report that he had killed her.
Green entered a guilty plea on Thursday that will see him serve life in federal prison for both counts, but avoid the death penalty. He is scheduled to be sentenced on June 5.
His accomplice, Cutler. also faces federal charges of conspiracy and murder-for-hire but has maintained that he is not guilty. His trial is slated to begin on March 11.
