A woman is behind bars after she allegedly tried to hire a hitman to kill her ex’s wife and the woman’s young daughter, prosecutors said.
Marilyn Zhou, 56, was charged with two counts of attempted first-degree murder and one count of money laundering in Trenton, NJ, after the hitman she thought she was speaking to turned out to be an undercover cop, according to the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office.
Earlier this month, authorities learned Zhou had been looking for someone to carry out a murder.
Zhou met with an undercover officer in Trenton on Dec. 18, explaining that she wanted her ex-husband’s new wife killed, authorities contend.
Zhou said that if the woman’s 13-year-old daughter was present at the time of the would-be hit, she should also be killed, the prosecutor’s office said in a news release.
To help carry out the plot, Zhou also provided the officer with a pair of rubber gloves, a towel, and two photographs of the woman she wanted dead.
She also handed over $21,000 in cash, offering to pay another $20,000 once the murder had been carried out, according to prosecutors.
Shortly after the meeting, Zhou was arrested by the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Special Investigations Unit, which searched her home in Chadds Ford, Pa., later that evening and found $18,000 in cash and the items she suggested using during the murder.
The prosecutor’s office has since filed a motion to detain Zhou during the lead up to her trial.