Figuring he had nothing to lose, what with his three life sentences, a Maryland inmate fired off a deadly threat to an elderly woman he never met because he wanted $700 in prison.
Darren Witmer, who will die behind bars at the Western Correctional Institution, got up to his old habits with a letter sent to a woman connected to one of his victims.
He mailed the menacing note in October 2015, and last week was sentenced to six years in prison that is, on top of his life sentences.
The 45-year-old convict racked those sentences by killing an 83-year-old veteran in 1994, for $300; killing a 78-year-old man days later, for $1,000; and then for strangling his cellmate in 2009.
In between his first two murders and his third, he also briefly escaped from jai.
So he went at it again last year in a letter, obtained by the Washington Post, that he mailed to a 75-year-old woman living alone whose address he took six years ago, from the records of the inmate he killed.
“Trust me you won’t even see it coming,” the letter said.
“You will die that’s how this will end so if you think this is a game then play it.”
Witmer demanded she send $700 to his prison account or else, he had “people in position” to take her to a river and murder her.
The money never came instead, the terrified woman simply called the cops. The murderer then faced a brand new charge for extortion.
When speaking to detectives for his latest crime, Witmer said he saw no reason not to threaten the woman for a possible payday. He dismissed the crime as a “one-hit wonder.”
“I’m going to die in prison,” he said, according to the Post.
“Let’s do the risk-reward…That’s like the Gingerbread Man: Catch me if you can. I’m a criminal, homes.”
