Principal had mother of his unborn child killed after Missouri affair, feds say

A married Missouri school principal hired a close friend to kill the woman he had an “ongoing romantic relationship with” after she got pregnant with their baby, federal officials say. That woman was not his wife.

Now the former principal Cornelius M. Green and friend Phillip J. Cutler have been indicted by a federal grand jury in the 2016 murder-for-hire plot that led to the death of Jocelyn Peters and her unborn child, according to a March 10 news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri.

Peters was seven months pregnant at the time, KSDK reported.

These new federal charges of “conspiracy to commit murder for hire” and “murder for hire” come after Green and Cutler were charged in state court in 2016, KSDK reported.

After prosecutors announced they were seeking the death penalty in the death of Peters, a school teacher, her mother Lacey shared “It will never be any kind of closure,” KTVI reported in 2017.

The defense attorneys representing Green and Cutler in federal court have not been publicly released as of March 11. St. Louis Public Schools, the district Green worked for, did not immediately respond to a request for comment by McClatchy News.

In an indictment filed in court on March 9, authorities say Green stole money from Carr Lane Visual and Performing Arts Middle School and sent $2,500 from the school’s address to Cutler, a “longstanding” friend, in March 2016.

Cutler accepted the cash “in exchange for his planned killing of Peters and her unborn child,” officials said.

Later that month, Cutler traveled from Oklahoma to St. Louis and stayed at the home where Green and his sister lived, according to court records. Green and Cutler then took Green’s car to an Amtrak station, authorities say, and Green took a train to Chicago “to establish an alibi.”

Before Green left for Illinois, though, officials said he gave Cutler keys to Peters’ apartment.

On or about March 24, 2014, Cutler entered Peters’ home, found her in bed and shot her in the head, records say, “using a potato as a silencer to muffle the sound of the shot.”

Peters and her unborn baby were both killed.

At about 6:40 a.m. on March 24, authorities say Green used a Visa credit card to buy an Amtrak ticket for his return to St. Louis “so there would be verification that he was in Chicago at the time of the murder.”

Federal prosecutors are seeking the death penalty, according to court records.

This story was originally published March 11, 2022 at 2:00 PM with the headline "Principal had mother of his unborn child killed after Missouri affair, feds say."