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Rogers Man Sentenced To More Than 15 Years In Murder-For-Hire Case

BENTON COUNTY (KFSM) – A Rogers man who wanted to give an informant $5,000 to kill a police officer and two people who aided police in his initial drug ar...
Leo Mays

BENTON COUNTY (KFSM) – A Rogers man who wanted to give an informant $5,000 to kill a police officer and two people who aided police in his initial drug arrest was sentenced to more than 15 years on Monday (May 4), officials say.

Leo Mays, 50, was convicted on a charge of conspiracy to commit capital murder and given 181 months in prison with an additional 120 months suspended, according to court officials.

The convict was arrested in January 2014 after investigators said he met a criminal informant at a Bentonville motel to go over a murder-for-hire plot.

Mays said he wanted the informant to hire someone to kill two men whose statements to police led to Mays’ arrest, according to a probable cause report filed in Benton County. He also wanted a police officer dead, saying he also had to get rid of a few “snitches” and wanted to line “the courthouse steps with dead bodies,” deputies said Mays told the informant.

The informant brought an undercover detective to the motel room, disguised as a hitman. After the detective arrived, all three continue to talk about the planned killing of the three men, for which the hitman would be paid $5,000, according to the probable cause report.

Mays told the informant and undercover detective he wanted them to use “a sledgehammer to split his head” after luring the “snitch” to Kansas City, where he either might be buried or fed to pigs at a nearby farm, according to the Benton County Sheriff’s Office.

Deputies said Mays also told the men he wanted the tongue from one of the targets to be ripped out and his neck snapped. Mays was going to wear the target’s tongue around his neck, the affidavit states.

After the undercover officer and the confidential informant left the room, three Benton County deputies swarmed the motel and arrested Mays. Mays told arresting deputies he was not serious about the hit, the probable cause affidavit states.

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