CORALVILLE, Iowa (AP) - A man serving more than 80 years in prison for two separate murder-for-hire plots has died behind bars, according to Iowa prison officials.
Justin Lee Dewitt, 39, of North Liberty, died Friday afternoon, prison officials said in a news release. Officials have not said how Dewitt died.
Dewitt was sentenced in 2018 to 35 years in prison for a murder-for-hire scheme in which he sought to have someone kill his business associate, the associate’s wife and their two children, then aged 2 and 4. He pleaded guilty in that case to two counts of attempted murder and two counts of solicitation to commit murder.
In 2019, Dewitt was sentenced to 50 years for trying to organize from behind bars the killings of witnesses in his first case so they couldn’t testify against him. In that case, he was convicted of three counts of attempted murder
An autopsy has been ordered in his death.
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