Second defendant pleads guilty in Middletown murder-for-hire plot

Casey Fryman, one of three people charged in a Middletown murder-for-hire plot, appears in November in Butler County Common Pleas Court with attorney David Washington. STAFF FILE/2016

Casey Fryman, one of three people charged in a Middletown murder-for-hire plot, appears in November in Butler County Common Pleas Court with attorney David Washington. STAFF FILE/2016

The second of three people charged in a murder-for-hire plot has admitted guilt in the plan hatched from a nasty divorce.

Casey Fryman, 32, pleaded guilty last week to attempted conspiracy to commit aggravated murder. He faces up to eight years in prison.

MORE: Nasty divorce led woman to arrange murder-for-hire plot

Fryman and his wife, Sarah Fryman, 21, both of Riverview Avenue, Middletown, were arrested in September when the plot was uncovered for Shelly Carter to have her estranged husband killed.

Carter, 42, of Madison Twp., pleaded guilty in January to the same charge. She faces a maximum of eight years in prison.

Sarah Fryman is scheduled to be back in court later this month.

Police said Carter was in fear of losing her home and custody of her children when she arranged last September to have her estranged husband, Christian “Tony” Carter, killed.

Shelly Carter told the judge at her plea hearing that she talked with a man in his backyard and asked him to kill her husband.

WATCH: Wife admits to murder-for-hire plot

Police said the mother of two offered to pay a man $1,000 — $500 up front and $500 after the job was completed — and give him an SUV as payment if he killed her estranged husband by crashing into his car in front of the couple’s home.

Instead, the man told police about the alleged plot.

The “accident” was timed to coincide for when Tony Carter would be dropping off the couple’s children, and Shelly Carter instructed the hit man to “do it even if the kids were in the car,” police testified.

MORE: Husband thanks police for ‘safety of my boys and myself’

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