A Utah inmate jailed for allegedly raping a 13-year-old girl now faces charges for trying to hire a hitman to kill the teenager to keep her from testifying, police said.
Kristoffer Jones, an inmate at the Purgatory Correctional Facility in Hurricane, Utah, allegedly "solicited several inmates to either kill or assist in coordinating the murder" of the victim, the Washington County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.
He was booked Monday on two counts of criminal solicitation of murder following a monthslong investigation, NBC News reported. Jones was being held on child sex offenses from an incident investigated in January.
Authorities said they were alerted to the alleged murder-for-hire plot through information gathered by deputies assigned to the prison's intelligence unit.
