Georgia man arrested for 1994 killing found dead in cell

<p>A Georgia man arrested two weeks ago on murder-for-hire charges apparently killed himself in his cell at an Oklahoma prison on Christmas Day, U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins said Tuesday.</p><p>Leo Lamont Utley, 54, of Augusta, Ga., was found unconscious on Sunday in his cell at the Federal Transfer Center in Oklahoma City, Cummins said. Cummins' office said Tuesday in a news release that Utley's death was being investigated as a suicide.</p><p>The two men Utley was accused of killing were supposed to testify against a third man charged with distributing the drug PCP. Authorities say Utley killed Judson Fielding and Charles Winfield before they could testify against Willie Hankerson in a 1994 drug trial.</p><p>Hankerson, who was released on bond after a detention hearing in October 1994, reportedly enlisted Utley to kill Fielding and Winfield and Lonnie Moore, Hankerson's co-defendant, in exchange for $100,000.</p><p>Fielding was killed in Augusta, Ga., and Winfield was killed in Washington.</p><p>Utley would have faced life in prison without parole or the death penalty.</p>

http://accesswdun.com/article/2005/12/132491