Chesapeake murder-for-hire defendant denied bond
CHESAPEAKE, Va. (WAVY) – Amanda Deese, 49, was denied bond Tuesday morning on a charge of conspiracy to commit murder by Circuit Court Judge Stephen Telfeyan.
The prosecution offered a few more details in what police say was a plot to kill a witness ready to testify against Brian Askew, 37. He is awaiting trial on a charge of malicious wounding. Police say he wanted to prevent the wounding victim from ever testifying against him.
At Deese’s bond hearing, the Commonwealth said Askew recruited a fellow inmate in late January to be a hitman, telling him, “My b**** will come get you on January 29”, referring to Deese and the day the hitman would get out of jail. “She’ll be in a black Ford F350. She’ll have the gun for you.”
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But the hitman was a confidential informant, who tipped off police the night before. The next morning they arrested Deese outside the jail as she waited in the truck that Askew had described.
Deese told me last week from jail that she was there to give him a carpentry job with her remodeling business, and not there as a facilitator for murder.
“That is an assumption and an opinion. I have no idea what they’re speaking on. I was arranging a contractor to go to work in a bathroom remodel next door to my shop. I have no clue what they’re talking about,” Deese said.
But police say they found a handgun with an extended magazine in Deese’s truck, a picture of that gun sitting in the truck taken four days before her arrest, and information connected to the target in her iPad.
Police and prosecutors have said Askew told Deese the target “has got to go,” and that someone could “run up on her and pop her a**, and I’m free and I’m out”.
Deese denies recalling that conversation. “I do not remember hearing him say that at all.”
Askew’s trial is currently set for April.
When our initial report on Amanda Deese aired last week, someone in Hampton Roads recognized her. That part of the story is coming up Monday in a special report.
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