Father Helped Daughter in Murder-Suicide Plot: Cops

A former Missouri jail guard persuaded her terminally ill father to fatally shoot her estranged husband to resolve a custody dispute and then kill himself so it appeared to be a murder-suicide, authorities allege. Elizabeth Kilgore, 35, of Quincy, pleaded not guilty last week to first-degree murder in the death of Lance Kilgore, the AP reports. No attorney is listed for her in online court records. She is jailed without bond. A Missouri State Highway Patrol sergeant wrote in charging documents that 77-year-old Charles Sander, a convicted felon, killed his son-in-law and himself in September. The shooting occurred during what was supposed to be a custody exchange of the couple's 2-year-old son at a convenience store in Osceola

The sergeant said the child was the focus of a contentious divorce that was nearly finalized. A witness who was attempting to mediate the separation said Elizabeth Kilgore described hanging a picture of her estranged husband on a tree and said it felt "good" to shoot it. Another witness reported Elizabeth Kilgore said that if Lance Kilgore tried to take her baby away, she would kill him. After the couple separated last year, Elizabeth Kilgore moved in with her mother and began working at the St. Clair County Jail. While there, she asked two inmates for help killing her husband, according to the charging documents. She was fired in August after one of the inmates reported that she'd made the request. In a recorded call, she can be heard telling the second inmate that her father had offered to "handle my problem for me." While Lance Kilgore was talking to his mother-in-law during the child exchange, Charles Sander shot him and then shot himself. The shootings were captured on store surveillance video.

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