CHESAPEAKE, Va. (WAVY) — Amanda Deese, 49, is sitting in the City Jail over what she said is a major misunderstanding. Police said it’s a murder-for-hire.
Deese, along with Brian Askew, 37, is charged with solicitation to commit murder. Askew was already behind bars, charged with aggravated malicious wounding in a shooting case from last June.
Police said that two weeks ago, Askew got a fellow Chesapeake inmate to agree to murder his wounding victim so she couldn’t testify. The would-be trigger man would meet Deese right outside the jail Jan. 29, the day of his release.
But the hitman was actually a confidential informant. He tipped off Chesapeake detectives, they spotted Deese waiting outside the jail and foiled the alleged plot.
In a jailhouse interview Thursday morning with WAVY, Deese claimed she was planning to give him a job — just not that kind of job.
“Bathrooms and kitchens are my bread and butter — remodels, custom bathrooms, custom kitchens,” she said.
Deese said she was going to hire him as a carpenter, and this whole murder-for-hire talk is just one big misunderstanding.
“They’re saying that ‘contractor’ is a code word,” she said. “That’s not a code word.”
But according to court documents, police said in a recorded jail call that Askew told Deese his shooting victim “has got to go” because she would testify at trial, and that Deese agreed and advised Askew she would work on it. The two also allegedly discussed a method for the hitman to shoot the witness — “a guy could run up on her, do it and keep moving.”
Police also said the target’s address information was in Deese’s phone, and they recovered a handgun with an extended magazine from a compartment in the console of her Ford pickup.
“I have never seen (the gun), did not know that it was there and did not see it there,” Deese said. “It was not shown to me by the police. I haven’t seen it.”
Deese said she had never heard of the target or her connection to Askew until detectives mentioned her name.
“I know that I didn’t do anything wrong,” she said. “I don’t know this woman. That’s why I have no reason to hurt this woman and could care less. That has nothing to do with me. I don’t want to see anybody hurt.”
Deese is concerned about her own safety because, according to police, Askew was willing to order that someone be killed.
“It makes me nervous at night at home,” she said. “Everybody knows where I live, it’s all over the place now. Yes, it does make me a little nervous. I have three children.”
It’s unclear how much Askew was allegedly willing to pay for the hit. Meanwhile, Askew’s trial on the aggravated malicious wounding case is set for March.
Deese was released nine years ago from the federal prison system for felony mail fraud, so Chesapeake police have also charged her with possession of a gun by a convicted felon.
