A newlywed accused of soliciting her firefighter husband’s killing to collect $100,000 in insurance money has been convicted of aggravated murder in a scheme that was flawed from the start: His ex-wife was still the beneficiary of his policy.
Uloma Curry-Walker, 45, could spend the rest of her life behind bars for her role in the death of her husband.
Jurors deliberated for less than two hours before coming back with the verdict Friday, Cleveland.com reported.
The motive prosecutors said was that the newlywed Curry-Walker had run tens of thousands of dollars into debt through credit cards and loans, some of which she had taken out in Walker’s name.
As she sunk deeper into financial ruin, prosecutors said, she plotted Walker’s death to collect on his $100,000 life insurance policy.
She asked her then-17-year-old daughter and the daughter’s boyfriend to find someone to kill her husband so she could collect the insurance money.

Her husband had not yet changed the beneficiary on the insurance policy from his ex-wife’s name to Curry-Walker’s when he was killed, so it was the ex-wife who received the money.
Testimony showed that Curry-Walker gave the boyfriend, Chad Padgett, then 20, a $1,000 down payment to carry out the slaying.
Padgett contacted his cousin Chris Hein, who initially failed in his attempt to kill Walker.

Newlywed Curry-Walker asked her teen daughter [right] and the daughter’s boyfriend, Chad Padgett [leftt], a $1,000 down payment to find someone to kill her new husband so she could collect the insurance money

Prosecutors said 25-year-old Dorty ambushed Walker and shot him four times as he returned home from getting fast food Curry-Walker had requested.
She and her husband were packing the night he was killed for a move to a house they had purchased outside Cleveland.
The daughter, Padgett, Hein and Dorty testified against Curry-Walker at trial as part of plea deal for their roles in the murder conspiracy.
Hein agreed to a sentence of 18 years to life, Padgett 28 years to life.
The shooter Dorty, who  was sentenced to a 15-year in prison term in 2014 for an unrelated aggravated robbery will be sentenced to serve 23 years to life.

Christopher Hein [left], who initially was contracted by his cousin Padgett for the hit, failed in his attempt to kill Walker. Hein then got to Ryan Dorty [right], who prosecutors say ambushed and shot the victim four times

Prosecutors agreed not to seek adult charges against Curry-Walker’s daughter. She will instead spend a month in a juvenile detention center.
The daughter testified at trial that her mother told her: ‘No one would believe I would hire a bunch of kids to kill someone when I know people that could.’
Curry-Walker wrote a confession the day she surrendered to police that said she killed her husband because he was abusive.
Curry-Walker’s attorneys did not call any witnesses to testify that Walker was violent toward his wife. Instead one of attorneys pointed to discrepancies in witness testimony during closing arguments and suggested the daughter had devised the murder scheme.
The co-conspirators turned witnesses, all said Curry-Walker sent her husband out to get food from McDonald’s for her about 8:30, prosecutors said. Cellphone records show that she, her daughter and Chris Hein exchanged several phone calls and text messages in the minutes leading up to the shooting.
Padgett and Dorty went with another man to the house and Dorty waited near the garage with a pistol that Hein had acquired.
When Walker came back home, Dorty ambushed him and shot him four times as he was unlocking the side door near the driveway. Walker’s keys were still in the door, prosecutors said.
To hide her role in the plot, Curry-Walker placed a frantic 911 call at 8:35 p.m. to report her husband had been shot in the driveway.
Her daughter who is now 20, testified that she was riding in a car with Curry-Walker and Padgett when her mother first brought up the plot. She told Padgett to have the shooter pull Walker’s pocket out of his pants, to make the killing look like a botched robbery, the daughter testified.
Sentencing is scheduled for Aug. 8.
July 7 would have been the couple’s fourth wedding anniversary.