CAPE MAN CHARGED IN MURDER PLOT GIVEN 10 YEARS

JACKSON, Mo. -- A Cape Girardeau man who joked and laughed about what he thought was the violent death of a man he had paid to have killed was sentenced to 10 years in jail Monday.

Ralph John Knoblauch, 61, was sentenced by Circuit Judge William L. Syler for paying an undercover police officer $1,000, to kill Orville Meyer, a man he thought stole a diamond ring.

Knoblauch, who owns rental property in Cape Girardeau, pleaded guilty July 16 to conspiracy to commit murder. Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle recommended a 10-year sentence as part of a plea bargain. The maximum sentence would have been 15 years.

Knoblauch had made an agreement to kill Meyer for $1,000 on Aug. 17 with an undercover police office posing as a hit man. The officer was with the Southeast Missouri Drug Task Force.

Low price

Swingle said that it was the task force that learned that Knoblauch wanted to put a hit out on Meyer. The price of $1,000 was so low, Swingle said, because the undercover agent was apparently in a bidding war with another interested party.

"They got in a bidding war with a quote crackhead unquote who wanted to do it," Swingle said. "That is one bidding war they did not want to lose."

The police officer met with Knoblauch on several occasions, the last time to tell Knoblauch he had killed Meyer. Meyer had been warned by police and cooperated by posing as a body that had been shot in the head.

That last visit was videotaped. When the police officer told Knoblauch that he had killed Meyer, Knoblauch appeared fascinated, wanting to hear details and even laughing as the officer described in detail cutting the alleged victim, trying to make him confess to stealing the ring.

After paying the officer $1,000, Knoblauch asked him if he would be interested in "torching" some of his rental property so Knoblauch could collect the insurance money.

When asked what to do if the residents were still inside, Knoblauch said: "Torch it with them in it."

Then, Knoblauch said, "Am I getting to sound like a pretty crooked man?"

Swingle said that Knoblauch had initial designs on using mental defect as a defense. The tape proved otherwise.

"It shows he knew exactly what he was doing," he said.

Knoblauch's lawyer, Edwin V. Butler of St. Louis, could not be reached Monday.