An inmate at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility allegedly had another man seek out a hitman to kill his ex-girlfriend in exchange for $15,000, an expensive watch and a car, the district attorney's office said Thursday.
The alleged murder-for-hire plot was discovered when prison officials began investigating Zunir Wilson-Walker, 22, for misuse of the inmate telephone system, prosecutors said. Wilson-Walker allegedly had been communicating with Jaden Jones, 20, of Norristown, to arrange using Instagram to put out the hit.
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Wilson-Walker utilized another inmate's phone account to feed Jones information to post online about his ex-girlfriend, a Philadelphia woman who had obtained a protection from abuse order that barred Wilson-Walker from contacting her, prosecutors said. The two have a child together.
Wilson-Walker allegedly gave Jones his Instagram login credentials and told him to create a "burner" account where details about his ex-girlfriend — including her address and phone number — could be posted online with information about the reward for killing her.
"I need you to post that on a burner (Instagram) account, not my account, so they don't try to take my s*** down," Wilson-Walker told Jones in one call from prison, according to charging documents.
In another call, Wilson-Walker allegedly told Jones, "No exceptions this b**** has to get beat the f*** up or took off the map."
Viapath, the company that provides the prison's phone services, records and monitors all inmate phone calls. People who receive these calls receive messages informing them about the policy before their calls are connected.
Wilson-Walker specifically instructed Jones to use Instagram's Stories feature because these posts are only visible for 24 hours before they disappear, prosecutors said. Jones allegedly was told to keep the stories private, but to tag his friends and "trolls" to garner attention.
Records given to investigators by Meta, Instagram's parent company, showed eight Instagram Stories were posted on the burner account on Nov. 9, prosecutors said. The posts included disparaging comments about Wilson-Walker's ex-girlfriend and details about how to track her using an Apple iCloud account. The posts advertised an offer of cash, a Dodge Durango and a Cartier watch that could be held as a deposit for killing the woman, prosecutors said.
The Instagram Stories were visible to 18 accounts that had been following the burner account, investigators said.
In the months before the murder-for-hire plot, Wilson-Walker allegedly sought revenge on his ex-girlfriend by sending her threatening messages using a prison tablet, authorities said. He had been using another inmate's phone account because his own phone and tablet privileges were revoked.
Wilson-Walker also allegedly had sent letters accusing his ex-girlfriend of crimes against their child and involvement in his own criminal activity to her employer, the Philadelphia Department of Human Services and the Abington Township Police Department, prosecutors said. Court records show Wilson-Walker is in prison as a result of a 2023 burglary in Abington.
Wilson-Walker and Jones are each charged with criminal solicitation of murder of the first-degree, conspiracy to commit murder of the first-degree and criminal use of a communications facility. Wilson-Walker also is charged with terroristic threats, stalking, simple assault, strangulation and related offenses.
Both defendants were arraigned this week and are being held at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility.