Last of 3 in murder-for-hire plot admits guilt

The last of three people charged in a murder-for-hire plot has admitted guilt in a plan hatched from a nasty divorce.

Sarah Fryman, 21, and her husband, Casey Fryman, both of Riverview Avenue in Middletown, were arrested in September when a plot was uncovered for Shelly Carter to have her estranged husband killed.

MORE DETAILS: Nasty divorce led woman to arrange murder-for-hire plot

Sarah Fryman pleaded guilty Feb. 15 in Butler County Common Pleas Court to attempted conspiracy to commit aggravated murder.

When Judge Keith Spaeth asked her what she was pleading guilty to doing, she began to sob, but was eventually able to speak.

She said she was guilty of “trying to hire a hit man to kill my sister-in-law’s husband.”

Prosecutors say Sarah Fryman went to the hitman’s house to set up the deed.

Instead, the man told Middletown police about the plot.

Casey Fryman, 32 and Carter, 42, of Madison Twp., also pleaded guilty to attempted conspiracy to commit aggravated murder earlier this year.

WATCH: Butler County woman admits to murder-for-hire plot

They all face a maximum of eight years in prison.

Sarah Fryman is scheduled to be sentenced March 23. The other two will be sentenced next month.

MORE: Man pleads guilty in Middletown conspiracy

Police said Shelly Carter was in fear of losing her home and custody of her children when she arranged last September to have her estranged husband, Christian “Tony” Carter, killed.

Shelly Carter told the judge at her plea hearing that she talked with a man in his backyard and asked him to kill her husband.

Police said the mother of two offered to pay a man $1,000 — $500 up front and $500 after the job was completed — and give him an SUV as payment if he killed her estranged husband by crashing into his car in front of the couple’s home.

The “accident” was timed to coincide for when Tony Carter would be dropping off the couple’s children, and Shelly Carter instructed the hit man to “do it even if the kids were in the car,” police testified.

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