A 55-year-old lady is accused of serving to an inmate on Nebraska’s loss of life row try to swindle a former jail nurse out of $25,000 in what investigators say was a faux murder-for-hire scheme.
The plot was allegedly concocted behind bars by Aubrey Path, the person convicted of killing and dismembering Sydney Loofe after assembly her on a courting app in 2017. After one other inmate tipped investigators off, a probe started in mid-March 2021—lower than three months earlier than Path was sentenced to loss of life for Loofe’s homicide.
On Sunday, Samantha Al-Rekabi of Lincoln, Nebraska, was arrested. She has since been charged with felony theft by extortion within the case, in response to courtroom information.
An arrest warrant affadavit filed Friday and first obtained by the Lincoln Journal Star outlines how Al-Rekabi met Path whereas writing a e-book about Loofe’s loss of life. In 2021, the warrant alleges, Path “manipulated” a nurse at a Lincoln jail referred to as the Reception and Therapy Heart into smuggling contraband in for him, together with chewing tobacco and a cellphone.
Path instructed Al-Rekabi to befriend the nurse, the affidavit states. The 2 ladies bonded over their shared standing as “true crime buffs,” and the nurse would sleep over at Al-Rekabi’s home every now and then.
The nurse, who has not been charged, give up simply earlier than the Nebraska State Patrol’s investigation started. In a Dec. 2021 interview with the FBI, she mentioned she’d been manipulated by Path, and admitted to smuggling him contraband, the affidavit states.
The nurse additionally advised federal brokers that she’d confided in Path, telling him about her marriage troubles. Path exploited this, the nurse alleged, telling her he’d employed a hitman to kill her husband, and that he would solely name off the hit if she paid him $25,000.
The nurse mentioned she agreed to pay Path the cash, and went to the financial institution to withdraw the funds, accompanied by Al-Rekabi. Financial institution information replicate that the nurse took out $25,000 in money after transferring a big sum of cash out of her retirement financial savings account, in response to the affidavit.
In a variety of cellphone recordings obtained by investigators, Al-Rekabi was allegedly heard bragging to Path about getting the blackmail cash from the nurse. In a single name, a feminine voice will be heard marveling that “she’s gonna get her pension out simply [to] give it to us.”
A male then will be heard responding, “She don’t have a alternative.”
Investigators later got here to “imagine that there was by no means a official plan” to pay a hitman to kill the nurse’s household, the affidavit says.
Throughout the calls to Al-Rekabi, “Path additionally talked about his intent to have a firearm smuggled into the jail,” the affidavit states. The male voice in one of many calls explains that he advised the nurse to “convey me a gun so I can simply kill all people.”
At a courtroom listening to on Monday, Al-Rekabi’s bond was set at $5,000, in response to Lincoln station KLKN-TV. If convicted, she may spend as much as twenty years in jail.
The 55-year-old advised a Nebraska State Patrol investigator in an April 2023 interview that she aided Path out of worry he would harm her or her son, who’s incarcerated. She additionally admitted to working as an middleman between Path and his girlfriend, Bailey Boswell, a former retailer clerk who was additionally convicted for her position in Loofe’s killing.
Boswell was sentenced to life in jail with out the opportunity of parole in Nov. 2021. She was on the heart of a violent outburst by Path, who started slashing at his personal neck with a bit of a razor blade whereas bellowing, “Bailey is harmless, and I curse you all!” throughout his 2019 trial.
Path has spent latest months making an attempt to expedite his personal execution. Final month, a decide threw out his request to file a petition in search of to power the state to set a date for him to die. Path “doesn’t have the suitable to dictate when the state will execute him,” the decide wrote.
