A North Carolina man has been arrested in a murder-for-hire plot to avenge the death of his mother in a traffic accident in 2016.
Rhett Michael Barlow, 22, was charged Saturday with soliciting to commit the first degree murder of Donald Caulder Jr., the Wake Forest Police Department said.
Police did not provide any details on the alleged plot.
According to WRAL, Caulder, driving a dump truck loaded with logs and towing a Bobcat excavator, rear ended Barlow’s mother, high school teacher Michelle Barlow, when she was stopped at a traffic light in March 2016. Barlow’s minivan was crushed between Caulder’s truck and a tractor-trailer, the News & Observer said.
Caulder, 29, was charged with misdemeanor death by motor vehicle and failure to reduce speed, WRAL reported. Police said fatigue or distraction contributed to the crash.
The News & Observer reported that he was convicted in 2017 and sentenced to 12 months probation and a suspended sentence.
The owner of the truck he was driving was fined when an inspection found that the brakes weren’t wired to the trailer carrying the Bobcat and that the logs on the truck itself weren’t properly secured.
Barlow was arrested at Fort Liberty, where he was training with the National Guard this weekend. The US Army Criminal Investigation Division took him into custody and handed him over to Wake Forest Police.
He is being held on a $1 million bond.
