Staff Report
MONTGOMERY–Attorney General Luther Strange announced the indictment of a woman, already convicted for trying to have an individual murdered for financial gain, for additional charges that she tried to have a judge and investigator maimed or murdered. Marie Billingsley, 59, has been served notice of her indictment at the Tutwiler Prison for Women where she currently is incarcerated for these previous crimes.
Billingsley was convicted on December 8, 2011, of criminal solicitation to commit murder and three counts of second-degree forgery. The Attorney General’s Office presented evidence during a trial in Dallas County Circuit Court about Billingsley’s scheme to murder a woman and collect approximately $400,000 of life insurance. Marie Billingsley solicited a third person to assist in the murder. That person instead informed authorities of the murder plot. Although the third person did not know the victim’s name, special agents of the Attorney General’s Office worked to locate and identify the victim, thus preventing the murder. Using this limited information the agents further discovered Billingsley’s forgeries of multiple life insurance policies.
On April 16, 2012, Billingsley was sentenced to 21 years for solicitation to commit murder and to two years for each of the three forgery convictions, with these sentences to run concurrently.
On April 18, 2012, the Attorney General’s Office presented additional evidence to a Dallas County grand jury, resulting in Billingsley’s indictment on the following four counts:
- criminal solicitation to commit murder by soliciting someone to murder the judge who had heard the trial of her previous case;
- criminal solicitation to commit murder by soliciting someone to murder an investigator who had worked on the case;
- criminal solicitation to commit first degree assault by soliciting someone to “disfigure seriously and permanently or to destroy, amputate or disable permanently a member or organ of (the judge’s) body.”
- criminal solicitation to commit first degree assault by soliciting someone to “disfigure seriously and permanently or to destroy, amputate or disable permanently a member or organ of (the investigator’s) body.”
No further information about the investigation or about Billingsley’s alleged crimes other than that stated in the indictment may be released at this time.
If convicted of the charges in the April indictment, Billingsley faces a potential penalty of life imprisonment for each charge of solicitation to commit murder, and 15 years to life imprisonment for each charge of solicitation to commit first-degree assault.
Attorney General Strange commended those involved in the investigation and prosecution of this case, noting in particular Assistant Attorney General Andrew Arrington of the Violent Crimes Division, the Alabama Bureau of Investigation, and Special Agents of the Attorney General’s Investigations Division.
