A Nightmare on Elm Street (on Staten Island)

Wow. The Post today points to one of those crazy stories, broken Thursday in the Staten Island Advance, that just makes you scratch your head in wonder. Last month a young woman from Newburgh, NY woman named Shonelle Melvelle-Grant was charged with trying to hire a hit man to kill a former friend, Jessica Liriano, so that she could take custody of the Liriano's 8-year-old daughter Kiki. She allegedly even went so far as to pay a hitman a $50 down payment for the hit (is that seriously the going rate for hit these days?), though unbeknownst to her the hitman was an undercover cop!

Melvelle-Grant, who has two children of her own, had been obsessed with KiKi for quite some time. In 2002 she was arrested and charged with misdemeanor unlawful imprisonment after she baby-sat KiKi and failed to return her to Liriano for three days. That earlier incident led Liriano to move to Staten Island (on Elm Street no less!).

Melvelle-Grant was allegedly very vocal about her desire to off Liriano and enlisted her friends help in finding a killer. The friend instead contacted the police who sent an undercover cop to investigate. It is unclear how exactly Melvelle-Grant was expecting to gain custody of KiKi, but curiously enough she seemed to have absolutely no interest in Liriano's son Andrew. Crazy.

Bridge Behind Bars by lornagrl via Contribute.