A man has revealed how his former wife tried to organise a hitman to kill him in a new Channel 4 documentary set to air next week.
How to Hire a Hitman, which airs on Channel 4 at 10pm on Monday, sees presenter Yinka Bokinni investigating murder-for-hire online services, as she looks into cases where people have had hits taken out on them.
Among those she meets is Gabe Scott, from North Carolina, whose ex-wife and the mother of his two children, Kristy Lynn Felkins, 37, paid 12 Bitcoin to a stranger through the website Besa Mafia to arrange for a hitman to kill him in 2016.
The hit never came off because the site was a scam, and Kristy’s attempts to organise the killing were uncovered when a hacker exposed messages from the site and sent them to law enforcement.
Appearing on the show, Gabe explained how he believed Kristy’s motivation was financial, saying: ‘To say this money is worth more than me to my kids? That’s the line that shouldn’t have been crossed.’
Gabe Scott, from North Carolina, revealed how his former wife Kristy Felkins tried to organise a hitman to kill him in a new Channel 4 documentary How to Hire a Hitman set to air next week
Gabe and Felkins had been married for 12 years and had two children. They had been high school sweethearts and grew up together, attending prom together in 2002.
Appearing on the programme, Gabe said: ‘We would go down to the local swimming holes and go walk in the middle of the night and talk about everything. Then we got married young. I was so madly in love with her.’
‘I think she did [love me] as much as she can.’
By 2016, the couple had grown apart and were discussing amicable divorce before the hit was ordered.
Felkins, who pleaded guilty to use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of a murder-for-hire plot, first began using the Besa Mafia site in February 2016.
In court filings, the website is described as ‘a legitimate platform offering a variety of services, including murder, kidnapping, and assault, in exchange for cryptocurrency payments.’
Gabe discovered Felkins had paid 12 Bitcoin to a stranger through the website Besa Mafia to arrange for a hitman to kill him in 2016
Federal prosecutors claimed she would spend four months ‘regularly communicating with the site administrator to pay and arrange for the murder of her ex-husband.’
She would send over 12 Bitcoin to pay for the hit, with a message reading: ‘My target is scum, I’ve sent just over 12 BTC. I sure hope you can take care of this issue swiftly. Thankyou for your help and time.’
Soon after that, she ‘provided the home address of [her ex-husband] and other information such as the time he left for work, vehicle information, and locations at which [her ex] could be located,’ according to the complaint.
The founder of the Besa Mafia site Yura replied, saying: ‘Okay, we are all set. We will wait until he leaves his house and shoot him in his car. We won’t stop until he’s dead.’
Later, she would give further detail including ex-husband’s home address, the airport he would be flying out of, and where he worked, and even the exact time and location of a Starbucks he would visit.
One message read: ‘It appears he’s leaving for the airport late tonight or early Tuesday morning so if the hitman cannot do it today, he might be able to do it tomorrow when he leaves the house to go to work. Take care.’
There was discussion about getting a sniper on the driveway at night, with messages from Yura saying: ‘The sniper can find a good position to wait all night, with food and drink next to him.’
The hacked messages revealed a possible motivation for the murder, with user KBGMKN saying: ‘This man mentally, physically, sexually and emotionally abused me.
‘I ran and then he took my children away from me. He is quite the snake and master manipulator.’
In response to the accusations, Gabe said: ‘She has to. What other defence does she have? She has to save her own skin.
‘You can’t exactly look at her as the pillar of morality who is going to say the right thing, true or not.
‘You just have to throw that out the window and realise she is going to say the one thing she can, the things that are hard to say didn’t happen. That’s her only option.’
The user suspected to be Kristy got suspicious and requested evidence that the hitman was genuinely in Gabe’s neighbourhood and ready to strike.
Presenter Yinka Bokinni was left stunned after learning about Gabe and Felkins’ case on the programme
Communication ceased without the hit being carried out.
Her attempts to hire the hitman were discovered when police matched the phone number used to purchase the bitcoin in the hit with her phone number.
Meanwhile her IP address was the same as the last IP address to access the bitcoin account used to pay Besa Mafia.
And Gabe believes there was financial motive as his house and life insurance would have cashed out.
He said: ‘The part that bugs me and will always bug me, is – it’s not me. It’s the kids. It’s their parent.
Yinka investigates murder-for-hire online services on the programme, as she looks into cases where people have had hits taken out on them
‘Someone they are going to lean on and get benefit from for the rest of their life.
‘So to say this money is worth more to me than something incredibly valuable to my kids? That’s the line that shouldn’t have been crossed. That’s the one I can’t get over.’
Gabe said he is now determined to live life to the full, adding: ‘I always do new things. But I had an epiphany that you’ve got to live life!
‘Finding out someone hired a hit man and realising that that was there and that could happen…it seemed like…I just wanted to do more in life than just work and enjoy life later. Later might not come.’
And even though it turned out the site Kristy was using was actually a scam site, Gabe said her attempts to hire a hitman were real.
He explained: ‘It just happened to be this one didn’t work out. It is real to these people [who try to hire them]. They don’t know they’re being scammed.’
She was indicted in September 2020 and in March, she pleaded guilty to the use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire, U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert announced.
She is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Troy L. Nunley on June 16, 2022. She faces a maximum statutory penalty of 10 years in prison.
She didn’t respond to the programmes requests for comment.
How to Hire a Hitman airs on Channel 4 at 10pm on Monday
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