MAN CHARGED WITH MURDER CONSPIRACY

Ralph John Knoblauch didn't intend for Orville Meyer to live through Wednesday, but with help from several law enforcement agencies Meyer managed to survive, the Cape Girardeau County prosecuting attorney's office said.

Knoblauch, 60, was arrested Tuesday and charged with conspiracy to commit murder, Prosecutor Morley Swingle said.

As he sat on the front porch of his house at 1103 S. Sprigg St. drinking a beer late Wednesday afternoon, Meyer said it was hard for him to believe that his former employer wanted to kill him.

"We had a dispute about wages once, but that wasn't nothing," said Meyer, 55.

Knoblauch, of 1501 Rand St., had made an agreement to kill Meyer for $1,000 on Aug. 17 with an undercover officer posing as a hitman, Swingle said in a press release.

"I thought I was worth more than that," Meyer said.

Knoblauch was being held Wednesday night in lieu of $250,000 bond in the Cape Girardeau County Jail.

Meyer said he did not know that Knoblauch was planning to have him killed until about 9 a.m. on Wednesday. An officer with the Cape Girardeau Police Department came to his house, found Meyer on his porch and told him about Knoblauch's plan, Meyer said.

After Meyer and the officer went inside the house to talk further, three undercover officers who identified themselves with the Missouri State Highway Patrol came through his back door, he said.

Meyer said the undercover officer from the Southeast Missouri Drug Task Force posing as a hitman was to meet with Knoblauch about 11 a.m. on Wednesday after killing Meyer.

The prosecutor said that Knoblauch had already given P.R. Neely, the undercover agent, $500 as a down payment. Knoblauch also had driven Neely past Meyer's home in Cape Girardeau and pointed out who should be killed, Swingle said.

It was agreed between Knoblauch and the undercover officer that the murder should take place within a week, Swingle said.

Police explained to Meyer that Knoblauch had ordered that anyone else who happened to be in the house at the time should be killed as well, Meyer said.

To make Knoblauch believe that Meyer had been killed, the undercover officers wrapped duct tape around Meyer's hands and over his mouth. Then, Meyer said, they asked him if he had any ketchup.

The officers wanted to use the ketchup to give the appearance of blood for photographs that would later be shown to Knoblauch, Meyer said.

"If I didn't have the tape on my mouth I could have told them I had red paint in the basement," Meyer said. "It would have worked a lot better."

Meyer said he lay on a tarp in his living room while several photographs were taken. He also gave the officers his wallet to prove to Knoblauch he had been killed.

"They wanted to make sure there were no loopholes in this deal," Meyer said.

The officers told Meyer he should stay inside his house for the remainder of the day until they returned from meeting with Knoblauch.

Meyer sat in the dark in his living room, shades closed and television off, until approximately 3 p.m., he said. He heard a couple of people come to the door and knock, but he didn't answer.

But he was allowed to have an electric fan on, and one officer bought him two packs of cigarettes, Meyer said.

Knoblauch was arrested at 2:30 p.m. in the parking lot of the Huddle House Restaurant on Nash Road, the prosecutor said. Officers from sheriff's departments in Cape Girardeau and Bollinger counties participated with others in the weeklong investigation, Swingle said.

When the officers returned, Meyer said, they told him Knoblauch laughed when they showed him the photographs.

Conspiracy to commit murder is a class B felony punishable by five to 15 years in prison.

Meyer said he had done remodeling work on several rental properties owned by Knoblauch over the past 10 years, but he had never made any physical threats against him.

Meyer believes that Knoblauch was angry with him about a missing ring.

"He thinks I stole it," Meyer said.

Meyer said he didn't.

After the undercover officers left Wednesday afternoon, Meyer said he called his doctor's office to try to explain why he hadn't made his morning appointment.

"They didn't believe me," he said.