A 17-year-old Florida girl’s parents pressed charges after she was accused of stealing their money to hire people to kill them, authorities said.
The teen was arrested Monday and charged with two counts of criminal solicitation for murder, according to a statement from the Lake County Sheriff’s Department. The department had been notified by a witness that the teen, whom NBC News is not identifying because she is a juvenile, had given a friend “‘a lot of money’ to find someone to kill her parents,” according to an arrest affidavit.
Investigators said the 17-year-old stole her parents’ debit card and withdrew $503 and then $926.40.
Her boyfriend told police he had last seen the teen at a “known drug house,” where she told him she wanted to kill her parents, the arrest affidavit said.
When interviewed, the girl told a detective that she did in fact steal money from her parents and used $100 of the about $500 to buy cocaine and gave a friend the remaining $400 to kill her parents. When that friend didn’t follow through, she stole another $900 and gave it to someone else to kill her parents, she admitted.
Her parents, who live in Umatilla, north of Orlando, but have not been identified, chose to press charges against their daughter when they found out about the attempted murder-for-hire plot, according to the Lake County Sheriff’s Department.
The teen was first booked at the Lake County Jail and is currently housed in a juvenile facility, the sheriff’s department statement said. Her arraignment is set for Oct. 3, a spokesman for the State Attorney’s Office in Lake County told NBC News. It was not immediately clear if she has an attorney.
