WASHINGTON COUNTY (KFSM) - A Lincoln man is accused of trying to hire a hit man from inside the jail to kill a judge, a prosecuting attorney and the father of his kidnapping victims, authorities said on Wednesday (Sept. 10).
Damian Kelley, 21, was searching for a hit man when a cooperating source tipped off authorities of his activities last month, according to deputies. On Aug. 29, authorities launched an undercover operation into the allegation about Kelley wanting to hire a hit man. Kelley laid out his plans to a person in jail who he thought was a hit man, offering $12,000 for three murders, according to authorities.
"He thought he had hired somebody to take care of these three people and in reality it was an undercover officer that had posed as the hit man or the man that was going to make it happen," Chief Deputy Jay Cantrell said.
Cantrell said the undercover officer posed as a bondsman willing to become a hit man for Kelley. He said the two men met in the visitation area of the jail.
Records show Kelley was arrested once in May of 2013 and in May of 2014 by authorities in Gentry. The two men Kelley wanted dead, aside from the father of the victim, was the Gentry city attorney and the Gentry district judge.
Cantrell said Kelley was arrested on suspicion of three counts of conspiracy to commit capital murder.
Kelley was in jail on suspicion of kidnapping and assaulting a nine-year-old girl and a 15-year-old girl in Lincoln, AR in July. Nellie Cole lives in Kelley's neighborhood and said she saw him walk the girls to the ditch where police said they were assaulted.
"I saw Damien with two little girls and they were on their bicycles and Damien was walking in between them, so I went to Prairie Grove, and then on my way back from Prairie Grove I saw him right up there," Cole said.
Investigators said he stuffed a sock in one of the girls' mouths and asked the other to perform a sexual act. Officers said Kelley denied taking the girls to the ditch.
"People like that, we don't need them on the streets, because what they did to one person they are going to do to somebody else, so he needs to be sent off for life," Cole said.
His bond, originally $75,000, is now $100,000, according to the jail's intake log. Kelley will be in court on November 6 on the conspiracy charges and the kidnapping charge.