A woman has been sentenced to almost 19 years in prison after she pleaded guilty to having her fiancé killed after she secretly took out a life insurance policy against him.
Victoria Rena Williams, 67, pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, aiding and abetting murder-for-hire and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
"Not a day has passed where I have not felt the weight of my actions," the St Louis Post-Dispatch reports she told the court in a statement as she was sentenced to 225 months in prison.
She cried in court as she apologised to the family of the man she had killed, Charles Harris III.
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In 2010, Williams formed a conspiracy with a man named Michael Grady, 70, to take out an accidental death policy worth $250,000 on Harris and then have him killed in his Missouri home.
Williams told the court that Grady, who has been convicted of the same three offences as her, was the one who initially suggested the idea to take out a policy against her fiancé.
She checked to make sure the policy would pay out if Harris was killed during a robbery, and claimed that twice she tried to back out of the conspiracy but that Grady told her doing so would be 'bad for you'.
In October 2011 she set up a meeting between her fiancé and two potential customers, and on 5 October of that year Charles Harris was shot dead in his home by hitmen organised by Grady.
Williams got the insurance company to pay out $224,444, while another policy sent $175,762 her way and she also obtained a cashier's cheque for $110,000 payable to Grady's wife.
The shooters hired to carry out the hit against Harris have not been identified.
Williams gave evidence at Grady's trial where she said he witnessed an argument between her and Harris, telling her she 'shouldn't be going through that'.
Prosecutors said that her testimony was important to convicting Grady and as such they suggested a lower sentence for Williams as she had been facing a life sentence.
Harris' sister Annette said the family wanted Williams to serve the entire prison term of almost 19 years behind bars, saying 'Victoria is not God'.
Grady is due to be sentenced on 4 June and faces the possibility of life in prison without parole.
He is currently serving a 226 month sentence for aiding a large-scale, violent drug conspiracy by trying to determine who was cooperating with investigators and prosecutors.
Topics: US News, Crime, True Crime
Joe Harker