An alleged plot hatched four years ago by a 52-year-old pediatrician to kill her ex-husband has landed her in a deep mess after the supposed hit man she had hired to commit the act turned out to be a secret service agent.
The woman was also accused of creating a fake suicide Short Message Service, SMS, on her husband’s phone to cover up the plot, allegedly triggered by a custody dispute for their two children.
When the horrible plot was first relayed to investigators in 2020, Dr Stephanie Russell had strongly denied her involvement, just as she did when a court-appointed guardian raised suspicion that she harmed her own son who was two years old at the time, “to make it appear” as if his father had hurt the child.
On May 19, agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI arrested Stephanie on a charge of using interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire, which carries a maximum 10-year sentence.
According to an FBI agent’s affidavit, Stephanie tried to recruit a killer through employees and ex-employees of Kidz Life Pediatrics, in Prospect, an upscale suburb of Louisville, Kentucky. She allegedly planned to time the murder during a 2-hour visitation period with her two children on the last day of the school year.
Prosecutors said on May 15, after failing to have her ex-husband murdered during the holidays, she contacted a person she thought she had hired to murder her ex-husband in exchange for $7000.
On May 18, Stephanie placed a $3500 down payment in a specimen drop box outside her medical office. She agreed to pay the remaining half after the murder was done, according to prosecutors. Unfortunately for her, the purported hit man was an undercover FBI agent.
Magistrate Judge Regina Edwards, of the US District Court for the Western District of Kentucky, ordered Russell to remain in custody. It could however not be confirmed as of the time of filing this report if a future date for the next hearing had been set.
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