Daughter Plotted Murders Planned To Use Mom’s Money To Pay Gunman, Police Say

If all had gone as planned, say police, Patsy Gregory’s murder would have been paid for out of her own checking account and her husband would have been killed with one of his own guns.

The murder plans, police say in court papers, were designed by their daughter.

Wendy Gregory, 22, planned to fill out one of Patsy Gregory’s checks for $2,500, cash it and wire $2,000 of it to a Renton, Wash., man. He was then to kill Patsy Gregory, Patsy’s husband Terry and son Wesley with guns Wendy had stolen from the house in February, a detective said in a federal complaint filed Wednesday.

Wendy Gregory of Moscow made an initial appearance Thursday in U.S. District Court in Boise for solicitation to commit a crime of violence after being transported from the Latah County Jail. She was to have a preliminary hearing here Thursday for grand theft but Prosecutor Bill Thompson dismissed the charge to clear the way for the more serious federal charge.

Gregory’s motive remains unclear, but her preparations were thorough, according to the complaint filed by James Menking, an Auburn, Wash., detective on the Puget Sound Violent Crimes Task Force.

At one point she went so far as to videotape the route to her parents’ house, a split-level rancher with a two-car garage in a well-kept subdivision east of Moscow. The tape includes the layout of the home’s interior, including the room holding the gun safe, and ends with Gregory turning the camera on herself, the complaint said.

Renton police were tipped off to the scheme on March 3. The tipster, whom the complaint does not name, told police Gregory planned to do the murders herself but changed her mind and decided to hire someone.

Moscow police interviewed Terry Gregory, who discovered three handguns missing from his gun collection.

In a March 4 interview with Moscow police, Wendy Gregory said she stole the guns and had hired a friend, Guy Brown, 29, to travel from Renton to Moscow to kill her parents.

She told Brown the back door would be unlocked. Brown was to make her father open the gun safe and kill him with a gun from the safe or one of the weapons she had stolen, the complaint said.

With Moscow police recording the conversation, Gregory telephoned Brown and discussed a possible murder weapon, transportation and the order of the killings.

“The plan was to ‘off’ the brother first and to tie ‘them’ up,”’ the complaint said.

On March 7, Gregory wired a $1,200 “Money Gram” to Brown, who picked it up at a Renton Safeway from a detective posing as a store employee.

Brown, who is now being held in King County on a charge of conspiracy to commit murder, told police he never meant to carry out the plan and was only planning with a friend to “scam” Gregory out of the money.

Renton police searching Brown’s home found two of the three stolen guns, the videotape and directions to the Gregory home, the complaint said. Police also found “additional instructions to burn the directions at the Gregory home in the fireplace, as well as pictures of each member of the Gregory family.”

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