A fifth-grade teacher in Missouri, already being held on charges he molested a child in his care three years ago, faces new charges that he hired a hitman to kill the child.
Deonte Taylor, a 36-year-old fifth-grade teacher in the Ferguson-Florissant, Mo., school district, was already in jail, accused of having molested the boy three years ago, when authorities hit Taylor with the new charges.
Taylor was first arrested in November after DNA evidence linked him to a sexual assault three years before on a then 7-year-old boy who was in one of his classes, Newsweek reported.
While being held in jail awaiting trial on those charges, Taylor convinced his 66-year-old boyfriend, Michael Johnson, to pay a man to kill the child and his family, prosecutors say.
Both Taylor and Johnson have pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit murder and attempting to tamper with a victim in a felony prosecution.
Taylor also faces charges of first-degree statutory sodomy, accused of taking the 7-year-old from class at the elementary school where he worked and to another room where the boy performed oral sex on him, officials say.