BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. — A 33-year-old Palm Bay woman is accused of offering a man $2,000 to help make her birthday wish come true – shooting and killing her husband’s lover.
Brevard County deputies said Ashley Spencer reached out to a friend on Snapchat last month asking her if she knew any felons who “don’t give a (damn) about life and willing to do a job?”
That job, an arrest affidavit said, involved hiring someone to tie up anyone who may interfere with her plans inside the home of the woman who recently gave birth to Spencer’s husband’s child.
“Many times people will make a statement because they’re angry, or jealous, or whatever,” Tod Goodyear with Brevard County Sheriff’s Office said. “But very seldom do they ask someone if they know of a person that can help them commit a crime.”
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Spencer had recently acquired a gun and planned to shoot and kill the woman, who works as a corrections deputy at the Brevard County Jail, the affidavit said.
Deputies said Spencer’s friend reached out to law enforcement saying she felt the woman’s life was in danger and that Spencer’s threats were credible.
According to the arrest affidavit, the woman then worked with investigators to record phone calls with Spencer and arrange an undercover agent to meet up with her as a potential hire for her murder-for-hire plot.
Deputies said the woman offered the undercover agent $2,000 to help her secure the woman’s home and to take the gun with him after she shot and killed her.
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According to the affidavit, Spencer said she’d already purchased gloves to keep gunpowder residue off her hands and planned to leave her car and cell phone at a family member’s house so she couldn’t be tracked to the scene.
“Ashley advised that she wanted to get it done by her birthday, September 26th, and that it could be her birthday gift,” the affidavit said.
“She was putting her alibi into place and thought about how she would get rid of evidence and those types of things so way beyond just making a statement,” Goodyear said.
Deputies said Spencer was arrested Thursday and is facing charges of solicitation to commit first-degree murder and solicitation to commit occupied burglary with battery.
“We were able to get in early and start the investigation very quickly and bring it to a conclusion quickly and everyone was safe and no one was injured,” Goodyear said. “The possibility is that it very well could have happened and someone could have lost their life.”
Spencer is being held on $350,000 bond.
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