San Antonio, TX: Woman guilty in boyfriend's murder

Jurors on Thursday convicted the daughter of a San Antonio police sergeant of murder for a scheme two years ago in which prosecutors said she concocted a plan to have the father of her child killed for insurance money.
It took the group more than two hours to return the guilty verdict for Vanessa Cameron, 31, who previously had admitted to police in a taped interview that she knew Samuel Allen Johnson Jr., 26, was going to be killed before his body was found at an East Side cemetery.
He had been beaten and shot.
Cameron, who had been free on bond, was taken into custody. State District Judge Ron Rangel will decide her sentence later this month. She faces up to life in prison.

During closing arguments Thursday evening, prosecutor Jan Ischy waved a dollar bill in front of jurors as she explained that Johnson had taken out a $750,000 life insurance policy less than a year before his death.
“He had no idea that when he signed (it) ... he signed his death warrant,” Ischy said, describing Cameron as a “cold- blooded murderess” who also was jealous that Johnson had moved on to another girlfriend, who was pregnant with his child.
Cameron intentionally went to Mississippi when the dirty work happened to give herself an alibi, but that doesn't diminish her culpability in recruiting killers and planning the slaying, Ischy suggested.
Authorities have contended that Johnson was killed by LaKisha Brown, 29, and her relative Bernard “B.J.” Brown, 26, who was the boyfriend of Cameron's sister. Bernard Brown still is awaiting trial. LaKisha Brown entered a plea agreement in which prosecutors will seek a sentence of no more than 25 years in exchange for her testimony.

The defendant's sister has not been charged. But she was the real mastermind behind the killing, defense attorney Joseph Esparza told jurors during closing arguments. Cameron still loved Johnson and never wanted to see him dead, Esparza said as he urged jurors to disregard his client's confession. It was coerced by detectives while Cameron was drunk and tinged with information she had gotten from her sister, he said.
Likewise, Esparzaa said, jurors shouldn't believe testimony from LaKisha Brown — whose plea deal gave her motivation to lie for prosecutors — or pay too much heed to Cameron's own admission that she once talked about having Johnson beaten up.
“She was venting. It's a joke,” Esparza said. “This is not evidence that should get her convicted of murder.”
Prosecutors responded by playing clips from Cameron's interview with police one more time.
“That's a laughable position to take,” Assistant District Attorney Dan Rodriguez said of the suggestion that jurors throw out the confession. “She does not appear to be intoxicated in any way. She is sober, she's conniving and she is manipulative. Do not let her manipulate this situation any more.”