An Indiana woman who poisoned her ex-boyfriend’s oatmeal and then strangled him with her favorite tie has been sentenced to more than 100 years in prison.
Heidi Marie Littlefield, 42, was found guilty of murder as well as conspiracy to commit murder in the death of her ex-boyfriend Francis Kelley, WXIN-TV reported.
Prosecutors alleged that Littlefield killed Kelley over custody of her two-year-old son.
The case came to light when Kelley’s ex-girlfriend, Courtney Nugent, told police that Kelley hadn’t picked up her 9-year-old daughter for Kelley’s birthday. She had last heard from him two days before.
Indiana woman gets 115 years for poisioning man's oatmeal and strangling him with his favorite tie.
Heidi Marie Littlefield,42, was sentenced for murder of Francis " Fran" Kelly by lacing his oatmeal with fentanyl with help of her daughter & boyfriend.https://t.co/c7rP0EdTt3— Gita Poya (@GitaPoya) October 14, 2022
Carmel, Indiana police knocked on the door but no one answered. They later got back together after Kelley’s ex-girlfriend found her body on her couch, according to a probable cause affidavit obtained by People.
An autopsy on January 20 found that Kelley’s death was a homicide and that she died of suffocation due to a manual strangulation. She also sustained blunt force trauma to her head, left hand, elbow, and knees. A February 7 toxicology report concluded that she also had fentanyl in her system.
Police searched Kelley’s phone and found text messages in which Kelley accused Littlefield of tampering with her oatmeal when she was at her house.
“Did you do something to the oatmeal that was in my fridge?” she texted him. “You were in my fridge last night and it tasted weird after a couple bites and now I’m dizzy.”
Littlefield responded, “Who puts oatmeal in a refrigerator? I don’t know anything about what you do or want to do! Your life and the things you say/do are beyond me.”
Police said the former couple had a court hearing scheduled “because of Francis’s allegation that Heidi was violating the parenting time order. The main concern was that Heidi would not allow Francis to pick up her child and that she would stay at her home during “her parenting time”.
According to the affidavit, Littlefield’s ex-husband contacted police and told them that Littlefield’s daughter, Logan Runyon, told him months earlier that “Heidi paid Logan’s boyfriend, Robert Walker, $2,500 to find someone to kill him.” to Francis.”
The next day, a relative of Littlefield told police that Littlefield allegedly made several statements after the murder.
“‘He’s better off dead,’ ‘I didn’t mean to kill him last time,’ and ‘I might as well say I did and just say I’m crazy and pregnant,'” the relative quoted Littlefield as saying, according to the affidavit.
The relative said that Runyon was with her mother and that the two “went in and out of Fran’s residence from Thursday night (Jan. 14) to Friday afternoon (Jan. 15),” the affidavit says.
Another ex-boyfriend of Littlefield told police on Jan. 28 that “Heidi told her that Logan put fentanyl in Fran’s oatmeal sometime on Jan. 14,” the affidavit alleges.
The ex-boyfriend told police that after Kelley accused Littlefield of poisoning her oatmeal, Littlefield told her that she and Runyon went to Kelley’s house the next day and climbed through a window when he didn’t answer the door.
“Heidi informed [ex-boyfriend] that Heidi and Logan found Fran ‘vacuuming’ on the kitchen floor,” the affidavit states. “[The ex-boyfriend] reported that Heidi also mentioned a cord around Fran’s neck and that he was involved in the incident.”
She also told police that Littlefield “asked her over the past few months how much fentanyl it would take to overdose someone rather than kill them,” the affidavit alleges.
Runyon’s boyfriend, Walker, was arrested in a separate incident on March 23 and later told Carmel detectives that Littlefield allegedly contacted him in October “to find someone to take care of ‘her problem,'” the complaint alleges. sworn declaration.
Walker alleged Littleton gave him $2,500 to hire someone to kill Kelley, but she “spent it on drugs and had no intention of doing what Heidi asked,” the affidavit says. “Walker advised that she would receive another $2,500 once Fran was killed.”
She then allegedly told police that Runyon told her that when Kelley was found still breathing at her home, “Heidi grabbed Fran’s ‘favorite tie’ and tried to strangle him and smash his head on the ‘pavement,'” the statement alleges. sworn. “Walker said, ‘Heidi hit her head on the ground.'”
Walker alleged that Littlefield told her that “Fran was abusing her, her baby, and that ‘I would be failing her daughter if the guy didn’t end up dead,'” according to the affidavit.