Former St. Louis school principal convicted of murder-for-hire plot

Jocelyn Peters was murdered on March 24, 2016 in her Central West End apartment.

ST. LOUIS – A former St. Louis middle school principal appeared in federal court Tuesday to be sentenced for paying a friend to kill his pregnant girlfriend in 2016.

Prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Missouri said Cornelius M. Green, 42, pleaded guilty in February to conspiracy to commit murder for hire and acting upon 'murder-for-hire in the death of Jocelyn Peters. A U.S. District Court judge sentenced Green to two consecutive life terms.

Phillip J. Cutler, 46, the man Green hired to kill Peters, was convicted in March on the same charges and sentenced June 18 to two consecutive life terms.

Peters was found shot to death in her Central West End apartment on March 24, 2016. Peters, 30, was seven months pregnant at the time of her murder. She taught third grade at Horace Mann Elementary School in the Tower Grove neighborhood of south St. Louis.

Federal prosecutors reported that Green had sex with other women in a sentencing memo. He was also looking for ways to secretly end Peters' pregnancy. When that didn't work, Green contacted Cutler, his longtime friend.

On March 7, 2016, Green sent a UPS package to Cutler containing $2,500 as a down payment for the crime. Green, who was then principal of Carr Lane Middle School, used money stolen from the school to pay for the murder.

Cutler arrived in town and Green fled to Chicago to establish an alibi on March 21. Three days later, Cutler entered Peters' apartment and shot him in the eye, using a potato as a silencer.

Peters was working on baby shower invitations when she was killed.

When Cutler confirmed to Green that Peters and the unborn baby were dead, Green purchased a train ticket and returned to St. Louis. Cutler went to North River Front Park to eliminate any evidence.

Green called police when he returned to the apartment and reported Peters dead. Prosecutors said he made several false statements to law enforcement, saying he had no prior involvement or knowledge of the killing.

When Cutler learned he was being arrested that night, he ate two pieces of paper from a notebook he had in his pockets.

The St. Louis Circuit Attorney's Office previously charged Green with two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of armed criminal action and burglary, and said he would seek the death penalty in his case. Green pleaded guilty in federal court to avoid a death penalty trial in St. Louis Circuit Court. Under the plea agreement, the circuit attorney's office would dismiss its charges against Green if he was sentenced to life in prison on each count in the federal case.