Woman Accused Of Using Spyware To Track Boyfriend, Tried To Have Him Killed

The United States Department of Justice recently arrested a 37-year-old woman from California who allegedly used spyware to track her boyfriend and attempted to hire a hitman to murder him, Bleeping Computer reported.

According to a criminal complaint filed in a Los Angeles district court, Rasheeda Johnson Turner of Bellflower, California plotted to have her 55-year-old boyfriend—identified only as “L.G.”—killed in order to collect a life insurance policy of $150,000.

The court documents claim that Turner became suspicious of her boyfriend and was worried that he was getting close with another woman. She feared that he may eventually leave her and she and her child would lose their status as the primary beneficiaries of his life insurance policy.

Turner allegedly tried to hire a person to kill her boyfriend but that party declined to take her offer. She sought out another source to carry out the murder attempt and found one—though unbeknownst to her, that source was actually an FBI informant.

The FBI’s source quickly informed a handler at the agency about the attempt and communicated to agents information about Turner’s plot. At one point, Turner admitted that she would have killed the boyfriend herself—she obtained “pure acid” from a plumber and intended to poison the victim—but said, “it’s hard because I got a kid.”

At one point during her interactions with the informant, Turned admitted to installing tracking spyware on her boyfriend’s phone in order to track his location and movement. She said the app could tell her “everywhere he at, when he moving and everything.

Turner showed the informant a history of her boyfriend’s movements and said that she could “get him at a location” and tell the supposed hitman when he would be there so he could carry out the planned killing.

"I just want him dead and his phone gone because, you know, we be texting back and forth," she allegedly told the informant.

While Turner was set to collect $150,000 from her boyfriend’s life insurance policy, she was prepared to pay one-third of that to carry out the hit against him. She promised to pay the supposed hitman $50,000 from the policy pay out for completing the hit. She provided the FBI informant with a photo of the policy and offered $500 up front for the murder.

Turner began getting anxious to carry out the killing early in December, at which point she told the informant “that fly needs to be swatted,” suggesting she wanted her boyfriend killed soon. The informant met with Turner shortly after and wore audio and video recording equipment to capture the details of the conversation.

During the meeting, Turner laid out the final details of the hit, providing the person she believed to be a hitman a photo of her boyfriend and the location he would be at. The hitman was to text her “Operation Dumbo” after the hit was completed and she intended to remove the spyware from his phone after he was killed.

Turner—who was previously arrested on battery charges against L.G. in 2016—was allegedly confident in her plan, going so far as to brag about having no concerns about being caught by lawn enforcement. "You gotta beat them at they own game," she said to the FBI informant. "I watch all that killer shows, so it tells you how to get away with shit. It tells you what to do."

Just days after the meeting, Turner was arrested on December 13. If found guilty of the alleged charges against her, Turner could face up to ten years in prison. She was previously arrested on battery charges against L.G. in 2016.