Meet Principal. He’s your typical middle school principal—except, not really. Behind the professional facade, Principal has a secret life. He’s married, but he’s also juggling several girlfriends on the side. Keeping up with all the lies is exhausting, but somehow, Principal is managing to keep things under control. That is, until one day, when one of his side girlfriends, a third-grade teacher named Jocelyn, drops a bombshell on him.
She’s pregnant.
Now, Jocelyn’s thrilled. She’s always wanted to be a mom, and she thinks she and Principal are going to start a happy little family together. She doesn’t even know if Principal is married, but she’s excited for the future. Meanwhile, Principal is silently losing his mind. There’s no way he can have a child with a side girlfriend—his wife would leave him, his other girlfriends would freak out, and his career would be over. As a middle school principal, getting a teacher pregnant is a career-ending scandal. So, Principal does what any irrational, panicked man might do: he hatches a plan to get rid of Jocelyn.
And by “get rid of,” I mean “have her unalived.”
Principal calls up an old friend—we’ll call him Hitman—and explains his problem. Hitman’s like, “That’s tough, man. What do you want me to do?” Principal, without hesitation, asks Hitman to take care of Jocelyn, and Hitman agrees—for a price. The cost? $2,500 in cash, upfront.
Here’s where things get really messy. Principal, being a public school employee, doesn’t exactly have that kind of cash lying around. But he knows where he can get it. His school’s dance team recently held a fundraiser for their spring break trip, and they raised about $2,700. Perfect. So, Principal steals the money from the dance team and packs it up in a box to mail to Hitman, who lives in Oklahoma. To avoid suspicion, Principal doesn’t put his home address on the package—he uses the school’s address instead. (Yeah, we’ll come back to that later.)
Meanwhile, Jocelyn is just living her life, thrilled about her pregnancy. She’s planning for the baby, picking out names, and dreaming about the future. But Principal? He’s busy finalizing his plan with Hitman. Hitman takes a Greyhound bus from Oklahoma to St. Louis, where Principal lives, and the two go over the details. Principal gives Hitman the keys to his car and a key to Jocelyn’s apartment. The next morning, Principal boards an Amtrak train to Chicago to establish an alibi.
A day later, at around 3 a.m., Hitman drives Principal’s car to Jocelyn’s apartment. He quietly lets himself in using the key, sneaks into her bedroom, and shoots her while she’s asleep. Job done, Hitman calls Principal in Chicago to confirm: "It’s done."
With the dirty work handled, Principal takes the train back to St. Louis and heads straight to Jocelyn’s apartment, where he "discovers" her body and calls the police, acting shocked and devastated. The police arrive, and they take Principal in for questioning. While at the station, Principal asks if he can make a quick phone call. The police allow it, and Principal calls his wife, telling her to meet Hitman at a gas station to give him a spare set of car keys. You see, Principal’s car is still parked at the murder scene, and he needs Hitman to move it.
Hitman gets the keys and returns to Jocelyn’s apartment to move the car—but the police are still there investigating. When they see a random guy trying to move a car from a murder scene, they’re immediately suspicious. They detain Hitman on the spot.
Both Principal and Hitman deny any involvement in the murder, but the police aren’t buying it. They check local security cameras and see that Principal’s car was parked outside Jocelyn’s apartment around the time of the murder. Things start to fall apart from there. The police get a warrant to search both men’s phones, and what do they find? Incriminating text messages outlining the entire murder-for-hire plot.
But the real smoking gun? That package of money Principal sent to Hitman—it had the middle school’s address as the return address, linking Principal directly to the crime.
The game’s over. Both Principal and Hitman are arrested and charged with first-degree murder. In court, they plead guilty, and both are sentenced to life in prison.
All because Principal couldn’t handle the consequences of living a double life.
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