Multiple Victims (2007-08) - Edward Floyd - Chicago IL

A Chicago
man already in jail in a child molestation case now faces solicitation
of murder charges in a scheme targeting his two alleged victims, their
parents and two others, a Cook County sheriff's spokesman said.
Edward Floyd, 32, a former baggage handler at O'Hare
International Airport, has been in Cook County Jail since his September
2008 arrest on charges of predatory criminal sexual assault of a child.
He is accused of sexually assaulting two children, including a girl
who was 4 at the time of a November 2007 attack Floyd has been linked
to through DNA evidence, authorities said.
In a hearing today before Cook County Criminal Court Judge Dennis
Porter, Floyd was ordered held without bail on the new charges of
solicitation to commit murder, according to a news release from Steve
Patterson, a spokesman for the sheriff's office.


Floyd is held in the maximum security division of the jail and is in
protective custody, only leaving his cell for one hour a day, Patterson
said. Recently, during that hour, he told other inmates he wanted to
find someone to carry out a killing for him, Patterson said.
The sheriff's Criminal Intelligence Unit found out about Floyd's
conversations and arranged for an undercover officer to pose as a hit
man, Patterson said.
Floyd wrote a letter to the officer with the family's address, detailing where the children slept, Patterson said.
The undercover officer met with Floyd at the jail last week in a
visiting room and the meeting was recorded, according to the release.
Floyd offered $15,000 cash, with $7,000 of it in advance, for the
slayings, Patterson said.
Floyd told the officer he did not care if the family found out he
arranged their slayings, but asked that the children's deaths be "easy."
At the same time, Floyd told the officer the parents should be "shot in the face," according to the release.
When questioned Friday about trying to arrange the hit, Floyd
admitted in a written statement that he had tried to do it, Patterson
said. The Chicago family he wanted killed were told about the plot.
Floyd was to appear again before Porter on Monday.