Inmate's murder-for-hire plot unveiled

TRAVIS COUNTY, Texas (KXAN) - A man already in jail and charged with aggravated sexual assault with serious bodily injury allegedly tried to hire a fellow inmate to rob and kill the same female victim.

The inmate who was approached by Lamar Lovett, 41, wrote a letter to police and told them of the plot that Lovett tried to get him to buy into. Lovett allegedly offered cash to the fellow inmate if he performed the murder after being released.

Lovett was charged and jailed in late May after a domestic violence incident that left the female with major bruises to her face and signs of strangulation on her neck. She told police that Lovett attacked and repeatedly sexually assaulted her. She was taken to Brackenridge Hospital where doctors found she had a skull fracture and bleeding on the brain, according to the affidavit.

While in jail, police said Lovett allegedly asked the inmate, due to soon be released, to crush the woman's head using a crowbar which was stored in a shed at her house. Police said Lovett gave specific descriptions about the location of her bedroom and what she looked like. He allegedly promised the fellow inmate a payoff of cash that was in the home. He also promised money from the sale of the home, since Lovett would be her only heir and he would sell the property.

Police later recorded a visit, with the cooperation and knowledge of the fellow inmate after his release, wherein Lovett detailed all the plans. Police said Lovett also provided a sketch and a map to the property, which the inmate later gave to his own attorney.

The crime affidavit states Lovett's alleged theory for hiring someone to murder the woman was that if she was killed while he was in jail and her skull crushed, then police will think it was someone else who assaulted and raped her back in May.

Lovett was charged with criminal solicitation, a first-degree felony. He remains in Travis County Correctional Complex.