State College couple arrested in Chester County murder-for-hire scheme

The alleged murder-for-hire plot began with a routine traffic stop.

On the afternoon of Aug. 3, a Pennsylvania state trooper pulled over Christoper Jerome Pickard on the westbound Pennsylvania Turnpike in Chester County for an unspecified vehicle code violation, according to court documents.

Pickard gave a fake ID to the trooper, who subsequently searched the car and found 813 baggies of heroin, according to the documents. The 29-year-old State College, Pa., resident was arraigned on drug charges and held in Chester County Prison.

But things for Pickard were about to get much worse.

There had been a passenger in his gray Chevrolet, and authorities say Pickard thought that man was ratting him out to police. So Pickard, along with his girlfriend, Latrice Harrington, 27, devised a plan to kill that man, whose identity is being withheld by police for safety reasons, court documents state.

Chester County District Attorney Thomas P. Hogan announced the arrests of Pickard and Harrington, both of State College, on Friday on charges that include conspiracy and solicitation to commit murder.

"Knowing that he had been caught with heroin, and suspecting that somebody was cooperating with police, defendant Christopher Pickard decided to have somebody killed rather than face justice," Hogan said. "He and his co-defendant will now pay the price for this cold-blooded scheme."

Within a week of Pickard's arrest, police learned that he was soliciting from jail a hit man to kill the man who was in his car. Pickard believed that would help him avoid prosecution, according to the documents.

Pickard was given a phone number for a hit man, a number that was actually that of an undercover police officer, court documents state.

In exchange for the killing, Pickard offered $2,000 in cash as well as "an ounce of the dog food," a code for heroin, according to the documents.

Harrington, who was not incarcerated at the time, was a go-between for Pickard and the fake hit man, court documents state. She and Pickard arranged for the hit man to see photographs of the victim on social media, gave the hit man the victim's address, and even suggested a time for the murder.

At Pickard's direction, Harrington obtained a sawed-off shotgun, as well as a .40-caliber semi-automatic handgun, from a storage unit of Pickard's. On Sunday, in the parking lot of a State College store, Harrington gave the guns to the fake hit man, along with a $300 down payment for the crime, according to the documents.

On Tuesday night, Harrington called the undercover officer disguised as the hit man. He told Harrington to tell Pickard "the dude's gone and he's not breathing and he's out of the state, many states away," court documents read.

About a half-hour later, Pickard called Harrington from prison. She told her boyfriend, according to the documents: "That thing is done, you don't need to worry about somebody anymore."

"This case is a clear example of how dangerous drag traffickers can be in the United States," said Pennsylvania State Police Sgt. Keye Wysocki.

On Friday, Harrington was arraigned and is also being held at Chester County Prison with bail set at $500,000. Her preliminary hearing is set for Sept 11. No attorney for Harrington had been listed on court documents as of Friday.

Pickard remains jailed under $400,000 bail on the heroin charges and awaits a preliminary hearing on the new charges. As of Friday, no attorney was listed for Pickard in either case.