we knew that if she did a, b, c, and d, we were going to make the arrest that day. charlotte-mecklenburg police detective sergeant is part of the taskforce with the atf, monitoring the meeting from other parts of the shopping center. we had a pickup truck parked with a camper shell on the back, there were several of us in the back of that truck with an old style vhs type camera. we didn t have hollywood technology. it was just old school using what you had to make the best of a tough situation. as phyllis crowell waits in her van, hyman puts the vehicle in the camera sight line. meeting with crowell in the kmart supercenter in charlotte.
was as if she walked out of a mcdonald s, just finished a big mac, said thanks, i appreciate it. there s no doubt in my mind when phyllis crowell got out of the car that day, she thought her husband would be dead the end of the week. the undercover watches phyllis walk away, toward the department store, then signals the rest of the taskforce. i would say go ahead and take her. i m already preplanning getting to her before she gets to the door of the kmart. we are not talking about a huge tactical take down. there were several agents as she s walk to go the entrance of the store, they walked up, identified themselves, basically arrested her on the scene. i know as soon as she saw me walk up, knowing what i do for a living, she knew what was up. authorities charge phyllis with solicitation to commit murder.
in the town of matthews. where phyllis works in the preschool at the first baptist church. if you listen to her story, married, kids, preschool teacher. he have one s next door neighbor. phyllis 40-year-old husband comes in. with her descriptions, he was just a good hard working guy. other than the fact she wanted the insurance money and wanted to be away from me, had done nothing wrong. in 1992, i was a detective with a violent crime task forceful. darrell price, a detective sergeant with the charlotte-mecklenburg police department, first blerns the plot from a street source. phyllis crowell s 22-year-old
bent out of shape and everything. all right. she says i can play the role of a bereaved widow for three months or so, then i ll slowly come out of my shell, get ready to come back into society. you know we re talking murder here. i know. i know i am a cold hearted bitch, but life s life. i remember when that was said, all of us in the truck looked at each other like wow. there s a point i look away, chuckle. again, it wasn t a funny situation, but it was all kind of flooring me that she was so matter of fact about this that she was saying. but phyllis crowell is about to realize there are serious repercussions to her cavalier remarks. i would say go ahead and take her. as soon as she saw me walk up knowing what i do for a living, she knew what was up.
where someone else goes to prison for your crime. by making it appear it was doer, then you re off the hook completely. phyllis tells the undercover she is the sole beneficiary of the insurance policy and expects to receive 200,000 after the murder. what are you willing to pay on this? i was going to leave that up to you. i would be willing to go up to $100,000. that would be half and half. i ll do it for that. yes, she made a pretty handsome offer. that kind of shocked us. we were thinking, offer the was going to be more in the $5,000 or $10,000 range. which i think is quite adequate even today s standards, to have someone killed. that really threw us off. what have you got?