Utah man who paid $16K in Bitcoin to have his 5 adopted children's parents killed gets 7 years in prison

UTICA, NEW YORK: A Microsoft software engineer who organized a murder-for-hire plot against the biological parents of his adopted children after breaking into a dark web hitman site has been sentenced to seven years in prison, according to federal court documents.

The Northern District of New York sentenced 42-year-old Christopher Robin Pence of Cedar City, Utah, on Thursday, April 4. In December 2023, he entered a guilty plea to soliciting and funding the murders of a 35-year-old man and a 38-year-old woman.

Christopher Pence sought hitman to make deaths appear to be accidents

According to court documents, Christopher Pence looked for a hitman who could kill the New York couple and make it appear to be an accident or "a mugging gone wrong" when he visited a website "dedicated to arranging contract killings" in 2021.

Pence wrote to the website's administrator in 2021, stating, "I need a couple targets husband and wife removed," according to his messages that his defense attorney revealed in court, according to The Star.

“However, it is known that they and I (don’t) quite see eye-to-eye on something,” Pence’s message continued.

Federal prosecutors claim that Pence asked the site administrator to protect the three children who were still in their custody in addition to giving the couple's names, address, and pictures.

In an affidavit, he stated that the pictures were given to him by the couple for a "baby book" for their five adopted children.

Court documents indicate Pence contracted the killings by paying the website's administrator $16,000 (RM76,016) in Bitcoin in late July.

However, prosecutors claimed that a few days later, he attempted to revoke his "order." Pence was detained by FBI agents in Utah on October 27, 2021, after they received information about his plot from a confidential source, as per the affidavit.

The prosecution has stated that Pence was living in Utah at the time of the arrest.

Prosecutors claimed that relationship with the parents of his adopted children had grown "fraught" following the adoptions.

According to a press release issued by the US Attorney's Office for the Northern District of New York on April 8, Pence, a 43-year-old resident of Cedar City, has now been sentenced to seven years in prison for using the Internet to solicit and pay for the couple's murders.

Officials said there was no harm done to the intended targets. According to court documents, Pence entered a guilty plea to one count of using an interstate commerce facility in connection with murder-for-hire in December.

"Although (Pence) now seems to understand the gravity of the offense, it was not one committed in the heat of the moment," the prosecution stated in court documents prior to sentencing.

“Rather, the murder-for-hire scheme hatched by the defendant required extensive planning,” prosecutors said. Pence's defense lawyer, Eric K Schillinger, did not immediately reply to a McClatchy News request for comment on April 8.

Pences took 'wonderful care' of adopted children

Schillinger, on behalf of Pence, submitted a sentencing memorandum describing how Pence and his wife had connected with the New York couple through an Internet parenting group a few years prior.

According to the sentencing memo, the wife of the couple messaged Pence's wife in 2019 expressing her "concern for the safety of her children and need [for] a reprieve from parenting."

The memo states that after meeting the family, who were at the time residents of Massachusetts, the Pences made the decision to temporarily look after the couple's children.

The memo claims that after the Pences, who were residing in Texas, adopted five of the couple's children, they discovered allegations that their father may have abused them.

“By all accounts the Pences took wonderful care of their five adopted children, but tension grew between the (couple) and the Pences after the adoption was completed,” Schillinger wrote in the memo.

The memo claims that the couple attempted to drive a trailer onto Pence's Texas land, which resulted in the Pences relocating to Utah.

According to Schillinger, "the pressure became too much for Christopher" as the couple "continued to pressure their way directly into the Pences’ lives."

“His judgment failed, and he began to explore an option that he acknowledges now, no one should ever do. He went on the Internet, he logged into the ‘dark web’ and reached out to a purported hitman,” the sentencing memo says.

Schillinger concluded the court filing by arguing in favor of Pence receiving a sentence of two years in prison followed by three years of supervised release.

Pence was aware that the couple's three children "could be hurt in the process" of their planned murder, but the prosecution claimed in their sentencing memo that this knowledge "did not dissuade him from paying for the killing."

The couple's 13-year-old son could "help him avoid detection if the child's description of the killing led the police to the false conclusion that it was a botched robbery," the report said, referring to Pence's advice to the "would-be-hitman" to have him witness the killing.

“(Pence) meticulously planned the cold-blooded murder of two people with whom he admittedly had deep disagreements without regard for the collateral consequences. ... It is difficult to comprehend a more serious offense that did not result in actual death and/or destruction,” prosecutors wrote.