Craigslist is not normally a place to try and hire assassins – especially not under the guise of a modeling job offer. Unfortunately, modeling job offers are frequent on websites like craigslist. This means many unsuspecting women are in jeopardy of experiencing something similar to what Tinsley Keefe just experienced.
In early May, Tinsley responded to a modeling job post in her local Oklahoma City section on craigslist. Extremely excited at the prospect of working on what seemed to be cloud nine, she was too happy to try and find deeper meaning – and why should she have? Finding a modeling contract on craigslist is fairly simple and definitely not out of the ordinary.
This is why Tinsley Keefe was so shocked when she finally met with her prospective employer. The woman introduced herself as Samantha Dowry, and acted very polite towards Tinsley in the beginning. Soon after however, things took a very dark turn.
“When I got there, this gal that called herself Samantha Dowdy, or something like that, she got some information from me,” Tinsley explains. “And then she said ‘oh, and by the way, this is not about acting and modeling’.”
The situation took a complete 180; changing from a light atmosphere to very uncomfortable circumstances.
“I was like ‘why would you ask me?’” she reflects out loud. “And she said because she was recruited back when she was in college, she’d been doing it for a number of years, but couldn’t do it this time around because she was pregnant.”
After this unexpected turn of events, Tinsley was forced to keep her cool while the woman explained her true intentions: assassination. Claiming to be from the Israeli Intelligence Agency, the woman provided Tinsley with a set of instructions on the assassination, as well as vials of a powdered substance meant to kill the victim.
“She had all these pictures and a slideshow presentation all ready to go. She had codes… and was teaching me how to do those. But she also said that the reason she wanted an American female tourist to do it was because they would be less likely to be suspected.”
Included in the instructions was the procedure: prepare two cups of coffee, add powder to one of them, offer the victim coffee every morning, monitor his health and report changes in illness, and finally switch hotels after the victim is dead or hospitalized.
The woman also offered Tinsley $1,000 spending money on her assassination trip, as well as a $4,000 payout upon completion. Of course, the second Tinsley reached safety; she called one of her good friends that happened to be a lawyer and asked for advice.
Ultimately, this led Tinsley Keefe to report the situation to the FBI – who then took several weeks to get back to her. When the investigations finally began, the information started rolling in. Samantha Dowry was actually Danielle Layman, a Ponca City citizen seeking to murder her ex-husband by hiring an assassin over the internet.
With Layman now in custody and her ex-husband free from an unexpected murder, the authorities are looking at Tinsley Keefe as a hero. Without her ability to keep her wits about her and her courage to come forward, a man might be dead and a murderer might be walking free.
