Wife Tells Hitman: 'It's Easier Than Divorce'

The unhappily married woman is unaware the killer she is hiring is actually an undercover cop who is filming the whole exchange.

A woman has been caught on video telling a detective posing as a hitman that killing her husband would be "easier than divorcing him".

Julia Charlene Merfeld, 20, from Muskegon, Michigan, said that if her 27-year-old husband was no longer alive, she would not have to worry about "breaking his heart" or her family's judgement following a messy separation.

The 20-year-old calmly discusses possible dates for the hit, checking her calendar and stressing it had to be a Thursday.

She also requests that her husband is not killed in their home because it would be "messy".
Occasionally the mother-of two laughs as she chats with the undercover detective.

Merfeld checks her phone to set a date for the killing

"When I first decided to do this … it’s not that we weren’t getting along," Merfeld tells him. "But terrible as it sounds, it was easier than divorcing him."

She goes on: "You know, I didn’t have to worry about the judgement of my family, I didn’t have to worry about breaking his heart, all that stuff like this. It’s, like, how I got a clean getaway."

Authorities said Merfeld wanted her husband's $400,000 (£269,000) life insurance policy, and promised to pay $50,000 (£33,500) for the killing.

Merfeld pleaded guilty last month to soliciting the murder.
She is due to be sentenced on July 30 and is expected to go to prison, despite her husband requesting she is not jailed at all.