Twenty Years for Murder for Hire

ST. LOUIS (CN) - A woman who hired two men to kill her husband for the insurance money was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison. The men killed her husband in 1992 and burned his body in his truck.

In 1990, Karen K. Coleman asked a friend in prison, Larry G. Nolan, to help her kill her husband, Danny Coleman, 38.

Nolan recruited James Kornhardt, who recruited his friend, Steven Mueller, and another unidentified man, to make the hit.

The men killed Coleman on Oct. 22, 1992 in St. Louis and took his body to a rural field in Franklin County, 60 miles to the southwest, where they set Coleman's body and his truck on fire.

Coleman pleaded guilty in June to conspiracy and murder-for-hire.

Kornhardt and Mueller have been convicted and face life in prison at their Sept. 23 sentencing. Nolan died before being charged.

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