DeAnn Parkin (pictured left) in a Jefferson County Jail mug shot, (right) an exhibit of a text Parkin sent about the murder-for-hire plot.
An Ovid, Idaho, mother of three is going away to prison for more than seven years after admittedly falling for a fake “Rent-a-Hitman” website that she contacted nearly a year ago to solicit the murder of a woman living with her ex-husband in Wyoming.
DeAnn Parkin, now 31, was sentenced to serve 90 months in prison and three years of supervised release last Thursday in Senior U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill’s courtroom, approximately five months after her murder solicitation plea agreement hit the docket.
Prosecutors said and the defendant admitted that she went to the “Rent-a-Hitman” site in the hopes that she could pay someone to murder L.A., a woman she said had an affair with her husband and wrecked her family.
According to the complaint, Parkin in May 2023 told a “known reliable source of information,” namely the person who “runs a mock website for the procurement of murder for hire,” that L.A. “helped ruin our family and broken it up with her drug abuse and her prostitution services.” She said she wanted to make L.A. “go away,” whether to “another continent or make her disappear completely where no one hears from her again [.]”
Authorities detailed that ATF Special Agent Daniel Bowling began investigating after receiving a tip from the “known reliable source” about Parkin’s murder-for-hire inquiry. After the tipster repeatedly asked Parkin if she was interested and she confirmed that sincere interest, Bowling went undercover on May 23, 2023, and reached out to the suspect by text and began chatting her up.
Parkin identified herself by name and expressed that police could never get wind of the conversation or else she’d lose her kids.
“I can’t have this get to the cops or no one I can’t loose my kids,” she told law enforcement.
The complaint further detailed Parkin agreed to a “recorded voice conversation over WhatsApp” with Bowling.
“PARKIN stated that she was ‘willing to do anything’ regarding her problem,” the complaint said, if it meant L.A. being killed and buried “in a six-foot hole.”
“I’m fine with that,” she said.
By June of last year, Parkin reached out to the special agent “unprovoked” and reaffirmed: “I’m still interested in services.” She told the uncover investigator that it’d be fine if the murder was made to look like a suicide.
“Whatever is easiest. If you want to make it look like a suicide, she is a prostitute too,” she said.
Somehow, the case only got worse for Parkin from there. She put up $100 in cash, tried to use a diamond ring as part of the payment, and even “agreed to pay the remainder on an installment plan,” the complaint said.
If you’re sitting there wondering how someone could ever fall for a website that claims to be in “100% compliance” with the nonexistent “HIPPA (Hitman Information Privacy & Protection Act of 1964),” you should know that there are numerous other examples of the exact same scenario playing out.
In the government’s sentencing memo for Parkin, prosecutors noted that she “reported being diagnosed with depression, anxiety, bipolar, PTSD, dependent personality disorder, and adjustment disorder” and that she “has also been the victim of domestic violence and sexual violence.”
Nonetheless, prosecutors emphasized that her crime was “incredibly serious.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Idaho said called Parkin’s conduct “shocking.”
“While the defendant’s scheme to arrange a murder is shocking, it should not be surprising that law enforcement—in this case the ATF—was in a position to stop it,” U.S. Attorney Josh Hurwit said in a statement. “Along with our partners, we will continue to hold violent offenders accountable, regardless of the nature of their criminal conduct.”
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