A cheating wife who tried to hire a HITMAN to murder her husband after he found out she was having a series of affairs has been jailed for six years.
Kelly Cliff, 40, hatched a cold-blooded plot to kill Carl Gallagher, 47, after she started a string of relationships with other men.
The mum-of-two asked friend Dalton Bowen, 47, to arrange for her estranged husband to be “wiped off the face of the earth” after their 22-year relationship turned sour.
But Bowen shopped his former neighbour to police telling officers: “I may have a reputation for kicking ass – but I don’t go around killing people”.
Cliff denied soliciting the murder of her husband but was found guilty by a jury following a four day trial last month.
On Thursday (12/12) Cliff, from Aldridge, West Mids., was jailed for six years at Wolverhampton Crown Court.
After the hearing Detective Constable James Connell, from West Midlands Police, said “Cliff is a cold and callous individual who has now been convicted of a very serious offence.
“This was a very rare case for us, and I have certainly never come across one like this before.
“I have no doubt that Cliff was serious in her plot to have her ex-husband killed, even though they had got back together.
“Over a number of years he had continually forgiven her but she continued to be unfaithful and wanted him out of the picture.
“The evidence against her was overwhelming and I’m satisfied that she will now be spending several years behind bars.”
The court heard how Cliff wanted her husband dead after their on-off relationship broke down.
In September last year she left the couple’s home with another man but had moved back in by Christmas.
The court heard just four months later Cliff was again seeing another man which was when she decided to “be rid of her partner once and for all”.
Prosecutor Hugh O’Brien-Quinn told the court: “She wanted him dead – she wanted to be rid of him, rid of him permanently.
“The reason she chose Dalton Bowen to kill her husband was because he was trusted as a friend, was a man of violence and somebody who was unlikely to speak to police”.
Mr Bowen described the moment she turned up at his home “out of the blue” to ask how much it would cost to have her husband killed.
Bowen, from Bilston, West Mids., said: “She said she wanted her partner killed, wiped off the face of the earth.
“I have a reputation for kicking ass – using my fists – but I do not use tools and do not go around to kill people.”
The father-of-five was so shocked by the suggestion that he instead went to the police on April 5 and she was arrested.
Officers revealed text messages between Cliff and Bowen’s phones proved she was serious about having him killed.
