NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — Darrell Higgins said he was only being kind. Instead, he was only being conned.
Higgins, 72, didn’t know enough about the woman with the felony record living in his garage who liked to have guns around — Amanda Deese.
The 49-year-old was charged in late January with conspiracy to commit murder in Chesapeake, but several months earlier, Higgins said he let Deese live in his industrial-sized garage in Ocean View amongst tools and machines because she needed a place to crash.
Higgins said she gave him a down-on-her-luck story that was very persuasive.
“Oh my God, she could talk you out of your underwear,” he said.
Deese was in Higgins’ Ford truck when Chesapeake police arrested her, and police said she tried to hide a loaded gun with an extended magazine in the console. She has been charged with helping inmate Brian Askew arrange for another inmate to kill a potential witness.
“She always had guns around here,” Higgins said. “She’d bring two or three guns in at a time, and I seen the one that [police] got in my truck.”
Higgins is in poor health after a fall inside his home and was having a hard time managing his finances. So then he gave Deese control — and said she wasn’t paying his bills, including the mortgage and the loan on the Ford F-350.
“Three or four months of all my retirement checks and my Social Security checks,” he said, “so that’s about $16,000 right there.”
Higgins said he once trusted Deese, but now, he never wants to see her again.
“It’s hard to know if you’re getting conned, especially if you’re an old fart like me,” he said.
Deese was convicted in 2012 of embezzling more than $200,000 from a previous employer and was sentenced to more than three years in federal prison. She now faces a gun charge involving a convicted felon in addition to conspiracy to commit murder.
Since the beginning of our coverage of Deese, which started with a jailhouse interview, viewers have contacted 10 On Your Side saying they had paid Deese thousands up front to do remodeling work that was never completed.