CAMDENTON, Mo. (AP) — A judge has denied bond for a southwest Missouri real estate agent who is accused of attempting to hire a hit man to kill her former mother-in-law.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that Camden County Judge Heather Miller said Tuesday that she believed that 43-year-old Leigh Ann Bauman posed too much of a safety risk if released. Bauman was charged earlier this month with a felony conspiracy charge.
“I can find no way and I know of no conditions which would prevent her from contacting other people to try to meet the same ends that she is accused of doing,” she said.
Prosecutors said Bauman believed her former mother-in-law was interfering with her relationship with her children and agreed to pay $1,500 to have her killed and make the death “look like an accident.”
“Right now, I’m scared to death that if she would be out she not only would want to hurt me, she wouldn’t hesitate to hurt her daughters to get even with me,” her former-mother-in-law testified. “And she wouldn’t hesitate to hurt my children because she knows it would destroy me.”
Bauman, who appeared on video, broke down in tears several times during the hearing but said little.
