Police help victim fake his own death to catch ex-wife plotting murder-for-hire

HOUSTON -- "He's not going to come out?" Maria Sosa said to an undercover officer, after seeing a photo of what she thought was her husband, dead in a shallow grave.

Sosa's comments were captured on a hidden police camera. She appeared happy after seeing the image and was seen laughing on the video.

"When I saw the video of her -- when they showed her the staged photos of me dead with bullet in the side of my head -- she giggled and laughed like she hit the lotto," said Ramon Sosa, Maria's ex-husband.

The couple was going through a divorce, and Sosa wanted Ramon's money and wanted him dead.

In 2015, she met with a man she thought was a hitman but was really an undercover officer posing as one.

Prosecutors said Sosa offered the undercover officer $4,000, jewelry and Ramon's truck.

In an undercover video of their meeting, Sosa was seen handing over one of the installments in the hit.

In an effort to make the hit look real, officers asked Ramon to stage his death.

Officers put stage makeup on him so it appeared he had a gunshot wound to the head.

"They brought pictures of actual dead people with a bullet wound to the head, and they said, 'we're going to do it kind of like this one here'," said Sosa.

"You want to try to take it as far as you can, cause you want to show the true intent of this person was to make sure that their spouse or their boyfriend or their business partner was dead," said Montgomery County assistant district attorney Kelly Blackburn.

While Ramon agreed to stage his death, he said it was difficult.

"I went through a lot, and it was very emotional and stressful," said Sosa.

After almost two years, he still has a box of evidence of the jewelry and watches she was willing to trade for his life.

"As a victim, my life will never be the same. And as the person that committed the crime, their lives will never be the same. Their family will never be the same," said Sosa.

Sosa was sentenced to 20 years in prison.