Collinsville Woman Pleads Guilty in Murder-for-Hire Scheme
| U.S. Attorney’s Office July 25, 2011 |
A Collinsville woman pleaded guilty on July 22, 2011, to using a facility of interstate commerce in furtherance of a murder-for-hire scheme, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, Stephen R. Wigginton, announced today. According to a factual stipulation filed at the time of the plea, on December 16, 2010, a cooperating witness contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and reported that Christina Lynn Keck, age 32, who briefly resided in Collinsville, Illinois, and who formerly resided in Texas, had asked him over the course of several months if he would help her find someone to kill her ex-boyfriend, who resided in Texas. On December 17, 2010, the cooperating witness met with FBI agents and placed a recorded telephone call to Keck. During this telephone call, Keck continued to say she wanted her ex-boyfriend “gone.” During the conversation, Keck said if the ex-boyfriend was dead, “that’s fine with me.” Keck agreed that the cooperating witness could give her phone number to his associate,“Terry.”
On December 20, 2010, an officer of the Illinois State Police, acting in an undercover capacity, and posing as “Terry,” called Keck’s cellular phone and arranged to meet her. Later that day, Keck met with the undercover agent and paid him $600 to murder her ex-boyfriend, providing him with written directions to his home and place of employment and physical descriptions. The undercover agent told Keck, “I’m planning on staging a robbery and during the robbery, I’ll ransack the place and I will shoot and kill him.” Keck nodded and said, “Okay.” When asked by the undercover agent if she was “certain this is how you want to do it?” Keck replied, “I want him gone.” Shortly thereafter, Keck was arrested and taken into custody.
Keck has been in custody since her arrest on December 20, 2010. Sentencing will be held on November 18, 2011. The offense is punishable by a term of imprisonment of up to 10 years, to be followed by a term of supervised release of up to $250,000.
The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Illinois State Police. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Suzanne M. Garrison.