Tape Shows Solicitation Of ‘Hit Man’ Preliminary Hearing Held For Pinehurst Woman Who Allegedly Wanted Son’s Ex-Lover Murdered

A Pinehurst woman paid an undercover police officer to arrange for her son’s former girlfriend to overdose on drugs, according to testimony in a court hearing Tuesday.

The alleged plot against Tobi Beacham-Place of San Diego never was carried out. Defendant Diane Huber was arrested after paying special agent David Denbleyker of the state Criminal Investigations Bureau $5,000 and signing over the registration to her pickup to carry out the murder, the officer said.

Huber is charged with first-degree solicitation of murder. She has been held in the Kootenai County Jail in lieu of $500,000 bail since her Aug. 18 arrest at a Coeur d’Alene grocery store.

A videotape and two audiotapes also introduced as evidence during Tuesday’s preliminary hearing show Huber making arrangements for the murder-for-hire plot, said Deputy Prosecutor Joel Hazel.

During an Aug. 11 meeting with Denbleyker, who was posing as a hit man, Huber explained that her son had fathered a child with Beacham-Place. The two subsequently had split and Huber wanted BeachamPlace, who had custody of the couple’s daughter, killed because she used drugs and was an unfit mother, according to the tape-recorded conversation.

Beacham-Place overdosing seemed like the only way for Huber to get her granddaughter back, she said on the tape.

“It’s going to happen to her anyway,” Huber said on the tape. “At least this little girl is going to have a chance at life. That’s how I think about it.”

Police discovered the plot after an informant told them about Huber’s alleged solicitation.

Pinehurst resident Robert Lane testified that Huber called him in May about “doing an odd job.” She asked him to come over to discuss the job, declining to be more specific over the phone, said Lane, who testified that he slipped a tape recorder into his pocket because he was suspicious.

“I guess I’ll get right to the point,” Huber said to Lane during that six-minute taped conversation. “I’ve never heard of you being accused of anything or anything, but I’ve heard you know people who take care of people.”

Huber’s attorney, Harvey Richman, argued Tuesday that state law enforcement agents used Lane to entrap his client. Richman introduced a two-sentence note Lane made to himself after an early conversation with Huber that Richman said showed she had retracted her offer.

Richman also painted Lane as an unreliable witness, pressing him for details about conversations he had with Huber that Lane could not provide.

“I was nervous and scared,” Lane said, wringing his hands. “I don’t remember all of it.”

Special agent Walt Richard testified that Huber told him during questioning after her arrest that the only reason she went through with the murder-for-hire scheme was because Lane called her several times.

However, a videotaped conversation Lane had with Huber on Pine River Road show her taking an active part in planning the murder, Hazel said.

“I guess what I need to know is what’s it going to cost me and if he’ll do it my way,” Huber said to Lane during the July 31 meeting.

The preliminary hearing is scheduled to continue today.

, DataTimes