A woman in Illinois is accused of begging her ex-boyfriend to kill her husband so she could be with him again and not have to split the money she earned from the marriage.
Court records show that 48-year-old Allison Salinas has been charged with encouraging murder. The woman from Pekin used to run for office and wanted to beat Tammy Duckworth in the 2022 U.S. Senate election. She is still in jail and could spend up to 40 years in prison if she is found guilty.
It is clear from a statement of probable cause that she planned to kill her husband. The story’s most important part began in 2021.
People say that Salinas got in touch with her ex-boyfriend from when they were teens, about 30 years ago. Their relationship “began a long-distance relationship.” He lived in Dallas, Texas. She was still married to her husband the whole time.
That same day, on July 9, the ex-boyfriend said that he “felt that during the relationship Allison began to attempt to manipulate him after learning about an inheritance he had received.” She is said to have “began talking about her desire to leave her husband for him without having to split her and her husband’s assets in a divorce” at some point.
More claims are made in the statement that was turned in Thursday by the State’s Attorney’s Office for Tazewell County, Illinois. Salinas did more than “talk about her desire.” She made a plan.
“Allison began discussing the idea of soliciting someone to murder her husband around November or December of 2023,” the court paper says. “[The ex-boyfriend] initially tried to deflect the conversation because Allison had insinuated her desire for him to kill her husband so that they could be together.”
The ex-boyfriend said he made it clear that he would not hurt her husband, which he said made her think about finding someone else to do the wrong thing.
According to reports, the ex-boyfriend told the Pekin Police Department about Salinas’ plan in February 2024, saying that the two of them had talked about it a lot. After a video was shared to Facebook this month “implicating” Salinas in the plan, the investigation really picked up speed.
It’s not clear what this movie was about.
“When [the ex-boyfriend] did not hear back from the police after his report in February of 2024, he began recording some of his phone calls with Allison,” the document says. He said she talked about the plan for months and that he “became frustrated with the topic of conversation.” He finally told her that he could hire someone to do the crime so that she would “drop the subject.”
“However, Allison kept asking him over and over if he had found someone. “He told her that Allison wouldn’t listen, so he lied to her and said the Secret Service had called him about the murder for hire plan,” the report says. “This stopped the detailed conversations, but up until about two weeks ago, Allison was still asking him if he ever heard anything further and if he thought the Secret Service was still investigating.”
Authorities say that Salinas’ ex-boyfriend gave them recordings of phone calls and text messages in which she “discusses different ways that her husband could be murdered.” He mentioned that his dad’s old friends might be able to help. She allegedly told him, “I need you to make this happen.”
“There’s ur pic u need,” Salinas sent the man in a new text message on May 27, 2024, along with a picture of her husband. He replied with a thumbs up emoji, which she quickly replied to.
“Can’t talk, so don’t text back, but please understand what I mean to you…” She is said to have written, “Just take care of this.” She is said to have written to the now-witness later that day, “Don’t text back.” “We had a fight, and now I feel like trash. I don’t deserve to be happy.”
Then it sounds like she said her husband was going to stop paying the rent on a shop he owned, which would put a strain on her finances. She is said to have said, “Please make him leave.”
After about two months, Salinas is said to have sent a screenshot of a Google search she did where she wrote “can a wife testify against” and highlighted a result that said “an individual cannot be forced to testify against their spouse in a criminal case.”
An affidavit also mentioned a meeting with a second witness, a woman who lived with Salinas in the fall of 2023 and had “become close friends” with her. Investigators say that friend told them she was in the passenger seat of Salinas’ car when she had a video call with her ex-boyfriend. “Openly discussing finding a ‘ghost’ to murder Allison’s husband,” the affidavit says. Salinas is said to have later told her friend that “ghost” meant “hitman.”
“On another occasion Allison discussed killing her husband by sneaking shellfish into his food, which he is allergic to,” it says.
On July 22, an officer from the Perkin police department talked to the suspect.
Salinas is said to have “acknowledged that she had been discussing the murder of her husband” with her new boyfriend for a long time. ” She “indicated that she had not been in a good mental state,” but she didn’t think that meant she was crazy or insecure. Her ex-boyfriend “would not have had any indication that she was not serious,” she is said to have also said.
When spousal protection was brought up, even more information came to light.
Allison said that her ex-husband, Delbert Mills, who was found guilty of killing his wife in Texas in 2003, taught her about spousal protection. “At the time of the murder, Allison was having an affair, but Allison said she wasn’t involved,” the affidavit says.
“Allison stated she had not learned what Delbert had done until after they were married shortly after the murder,” it says. “Allison stated that Delbert had pushed them to get married so Allison could not testify against him in court.”
In the very end of the court document, Salinas admitted that she did give the picture of her husband to her ex-boyfriend. She didn’t say anything when the officer suggested that this was proof that she showed who or what needed to be “taken care of.”
The Perkin Police Department saidthat the FBI also helped with the probe.
In jail on Friday, Salinas had a hearing. It’s not clear when she will be in court again.
