A former Austin, Texas, police officer has been named a suspect in the death of his pregnant lover, with a warrant revealing that he reportedly sought out a hit man to kill the woman so that he wouldn't have to pay child support.
The nightmare began Feb. 4 when Samantha Dean, a pregnant, 29-year-old crimes-victim counselor for the Kyle, Texas, Police Department, was found shot to death behind a Texas mall. A preliminary investigation revealed that Dean had had an on-and-off relationship with Austin Police Officer VonTrey Clark. According to the Austin Chronicle, Clark, 32, told police that although he had a wife, he had been in a sexual relationship with Dean for some six years and believed he was the father of Dean's unborn baby.
Clark, who had been on the force since 2012, was initially not deemed a suspect but was notified that he needed to be available for further questioning should investigators need him. Then Clark was fired from the Austin police force after he missed a meeting with internal affairs regarding Dean's death. The department would later learn that Clark didn't just miss the meeting but violated protocol by leaving the country, flying to "Tokyo from Dallas before jumping another flight to Jakarta, Indonesia," a country with no extradition laws, according to the Chronicle.
On Wednesday a search warrant issued for Clark's police locker didn't net much evidence linking him to Dean's death, but new information emerged in the case, KXAN reported.
According to KXAN, a warrant dated Aug. 12 indicated that Clark reportedly had been looking "to pay someone $5,000 to kill Dean and her baby due to Dean wanting Clark to pay child support for the baby."
Clark's attorney, Bristol Myers, told the news station that the warrant language is pointed and the law doesn't require that it include the "facts."
"Unfortunately, there is no legal requirement that an investigator’s affidavit include any of the facts and details that might cut against the desire to search a given place," he said. "This affidavit for the locker was cut-and-paste from search warrants executed on Officer Clark's home and car, and the result was essentially the same: Investigators came up empty."
A sheriff's office representative told the news station that Clark has been taken into custody in Indonesia by the FBI but that it had not been determined when or if he would be forced to return to the U.S.
"Officer Clark booked an international round-trip flight in his own name," Myers told the news station. "[He] used his own passport and was easily located. These are not the hallmarks of a fugitive."
Read more at the Austin Chronicle and KXAN.