Entrapment Claimed In Murder-For-Hire Case Plenty Of Opportunities To Back Out Of Plot, Police Contend

Diane Huber admitted Friday that she asked two men to introduce her to a hitman.

In fact, Huber’s account of what happened during nearly a dozen meetings to arrange the murder of her son’s former girlfriend nearly paralleled the testimony of police officers and allegations by prosecutors.

But testimony about how those meetings unfolded differed greatly. The 41-year-old Pinehurst woman claimed Friday during her murder-for-hire trial that she was entrapped by police and an informant.

Police said Huber had plenty of opportunities to back out of the plot to kill 20-year-old Tobi Beacham-Place of San Diego, and chose not to.

Prosecutors charged Huber with criminal solicitation to commit murder after she paid an officer posing as a hitman to make the woman’s death look like a drug overdose. Video and audio tapes paint Huber as a calculating woman who tried to cover her actions with phony innocent acts, they said.

Huber and her attorneys claim she tried repeatedly to back out of the plan after rescinding her initial solicitation. Each time, police informant Bob Lane, following instructions of state agents, coaxed her back, they said.

“He just sucked me in,” Huber said.

Angry, afraid and alone, Huber said she was desperate when she decided on May 4, 1997, to hire a hitman.

Huber snapped when her oldest son, Alvin, returned to her house with police and a custody order to take his 3-year-old daughter, Airryanno, with him. The argument over custody and care for Airryanno was an ongoing one she had had with Alvin and Beacham-Place since the child’s birth in October 1993.

Twice before, Huber said she retrieved the child from filthy living environments out of state that lacked supervision.

Certain Airryanno was going to be returned to a similar place, Huber asked two local men if they knew someone she could hire to kill Beacham-Place.

“I was really angry,” Huber said. “No one told us. We didn’t have her prepared. We didn’t have her clothes packed. She was sick. They just came and took her away.”

“Tiny,” the first man Huber called, turned her down. So, Huber turned to Lane and asked him to meet with her about doing an “odd job.”

Few details about what Huber wanted done were discussed, but Lane agreed.

The next morning, realizing she made a mistake, Huber said she called Lane and tried to back out.

“When I called him and told him I didn’t want him anymore to do anything for me, I ended it,” Huber said.

Instead, the burly former Marine continued to call her, stoking her anger toward Beacham-Place if she started to cool on the murder-for-hire plot, Huber said.

Huber went to Lane after overhearing in a bar that he had killed people and she was afraid to make him mad, she said. Not wanting to upset Lane, Huber said she tried to stall him into losing interest instead of simply severing ties with him.

“I was trying to put him off nicely … because I was afraid of him,” Huber said.

Over the next several weeks, Huber told Lane she talked to an attorney about grandparent custody and visitation rights. She gave Lane the $100 fee he had requested for arranging the hit, hoping that would make him go away. She told Lane that her husband, Jay, was becoming suspicious she was cheating on him.

Lane did not back away, Huber said.

Meanwhile, the murder-for-hire plan kept rolling along. Finally, a meeting was arranged with “Rick” - a state agent posing as a hitman.

“It was too late now,” Huber said. “I knew I had to go through with it. I knew there was no way I could get out of it now - killing Tobi Beacham.”

Police arrested Huber after she handed over to the undercover agent as final payment for the hit an “IOU” written on the back of the registration for her pickup.

Prosecutors contend Huber willingly participated in planning the hit. She passed on several opportunities to call off the deal, including two chances before she gave the undercover agent a $5,000 down payment.

Deputy prosecutor Joel Hazel pointed out, and Huber conceded Friday, that she did not tell Lane she wanted Beacham-Place killed until the day after she claims to have called off the hit.

After that, Huber gradually provided more details about who she wanted killed, how she wanted it done and why, Hazel said.

THE CHARGES Prosecutors charged Diane Huber with criminal solicitation to commit murder after she paid an officer posing as a hitman to kill her granddaughter’s mother.