Baldwin sisters tried to pay woman to kill Louisiana man, make it look like overdose, agent testifies

MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) - Three Baldwin County sisters plotted for weeks to place a hit on a Louisiana man, according to testimony in federal court on Tuesday.

After hearing FBI Special Agent’s Jennifer Whitehurst’s account, U.S. Magistrate Judge Sonja Bivins ruled that prosecutors have enough evidence to move forward against Mitzy Gaye Smith, although she denied a request by the U.S. Attorney’s Office to keep her locked up.

Smith’s sister, Judy Owen, 61, of Silverhill, gave up her right to a preliminary hearing on Monday. Their other sister, 57-year-old Sandra Grimes, made an initial appearance on Tuesday and will have a preliminary hearing on Wednesday.

All three are charged with conspiracy to commit murder for hire, conspiracy to transfer a firearm to be used in a violent crime and use of interstate commerce facilities to commit murder for hire.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jessica Terrill told Bivins that victims in federal cases often are institutions or society as a whole.

“In this case, we have a particular victim with a name, a face, a family and children,” she said.

Defense attorney Dom Soto countered that little of the testimony directly implicated his client and that even that was based on the uncorroborated account of Rebecca Murphy, an admitted drug user with a least five felony convictions, two of which involved dishonesty.

“I wouldn’t trust what Ms. Murphy says about any of this,” he said.

Whitehurst testified that the FBI learned of the plot earlier this month when Murphy told agents that her neighbor in the Barnwell community, 54-year-old Smith, introduced her to her sisters. She testified that the women wanted to a kill a Louisiana man who is married to Grimes’ daughter because he had beaten her – so badly on one occasion that she suffered a broken hip.

The sisters initially paid a man $10,000 to do the job, but he took their money and went away, according to testimony.

Whitehurst testified that the women then turned to Murphy, offering her money and taking her on a trip to Louisiana to show her where the man lived. Grimes provided photos of the inside of the man’s house. The agent said Grimes and Owen took her on two other trips to Louisiana.

Owen gave Murphy money to buy heroin and told her to inject the man with a lethal dose, Whitehurst testified.

“They wanted it to look like it was an overdose,” she said, adding that Owen and Grimes alternatively suggested slitting his throat or shooting him.

Smith, the agent said, gave Murphy a gun hidden in a box of Christmas decorations.

Whitehurst said the gun convinced Murphy that the plot was more than idle talk.

“She took it as they were serious, ‘They really want me to do this,’” she said.

But Whitehurst testified that Murphy decided she could not go through with it when one of the women said she did not care if the man died in front of his children.

Asked on cross-examination why Murphy did not come forward with her allegations sooner, Whitehurst cited fear.

“She felt like her life was in danger,” she said. “She had been threatened by the three sisters.”

Melvin Nelson, Smith’s husband, testified that his wife takes care of eight children, including two that the Alabama Department of Human Resources placed in their care. Bivins ruled that Smith can continue living at home while the charges are pending but that she must be on house arrest under electronic monitoring.

Bivins also ordered Nelson to remove his guns and two snakes from the home.