Richmond woman gets 8 years in murder-for-hire plot

A Richmond woman will serve eight years in prison in a plot to kill the father of her only child over a custody battle.

Caren Taylor Pressley Brown, 48, was sentenced today to 40 years, with 32 years suspended, on two counts of attempted capital murder by James City County Circuit Judge Samuel T. Powell III, who called her actions "outrageous."

Brown was arrested in August after attempting to hire an undercover Virginia State Police agent posing as a hit man to carry out the murders and suggesting the house be burned.

The agent videotaped her offering him $4,000 to kill ex-boyfriend Steven Crosby and his wife, Amy Lifson. She was arrested in August and pleaded guilty to two counts of attempted capital murder in March.

Brown split with Cosby, of Warrenton, in the late 1990s while pregnant. He claims he never knew she was pregnant and learned about his son's birth years later; she says the father abandoned the child.

In 2005, Cosby was granted full custody of the child, now 10, after court proceedings turned bitter.

The defense argued yesterday that Brown believed the child was being physically abused by the father and was not taking medication for mild manic depression at the time of the incident.

-- Wes Hester