A 42-year-old former middle school principal in Missouri will be incarcerated in a federal penitentiary for the remainder of his life for the murder of a teacher on his staff who was pregnant with his daughter.
Authorities announced on Tuesday that Cornelius M. Green was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences by U.S. District Court Judge Ronnie L. White of the Eastern District of Missouri for the 2016 homicides of 30-year-old Jocelyn Peters and her unborn child, Micah Leigh.
At the time, Green, who was married, had previously acknowledged that he had employed his associate to murder Peters, who was seven months pregnant, using funds that had been stolen from the school where he and the victim were employed.
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In February, he entered a guilty plea to one count of conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and murder-for-hire.
Phillip J. Cutler, the friend who fired the gun for $2,500, was convicted of the same charges and sentenced to two consecutive terms of life in prison by White. White referred to the crime as the “most heinous” he had witnessed in his tenure as a judge.
Prosecutors alleged that Green had been deceiving Peters about his marital status and had convinced her that he was in the midst of a divorce and that Peters was the sole woman in his life. However, evidence indicated that Peters was one of several women whom Green was seeing. After failing to conceal Peters’ abortion pills without her knowledge, he resorts to homicide.
Nicole Conaway, the principal of Mann Elementary during Peters’ tenure, underscored that he funded the assault on his girlfriend by appropriating funds from his own pupils.
According to authorities, Cutler arrived in St. Louis on March 21 and commenced residing at the residence where Green resided with his sister. On the subsequent day, Green traveled to Chicago via Amtrak and entrusted Cutler with the keys to Peters’ residence and his vehicle.
Prosecutors claimed that Green’s sole purpose for traveling to Chicago was to provide an alibi for the murder of Peters and their unborn child as reported by Law&Crime.
On March 24, two days later, Cutler transported Green’s vehicle to Peters’ residence in the 4200 block of West Pine Boulevard in St. Louis.
According to prosecutors, he unlawfully entered her home using the keys provided by Green, discovered her in bed, and “shot her in the head with a .38 caliber firearm, using a potato as a silencer to muffle the sound of the shot.” “Days prior to her murder, Green instructed Peters to purchase potatoes.”
Green then purchased an Amtrak ticket to return to St. Louis, “in order to provide evidence that he was in Chicago at the time of the murder.”
According to prosecutors, upon his return to St. Louis, Green repeatedly requested that Peters’ mother “check on her,” as he was aware of the information she would discover.