US prosecutors charge 2 North Carolina men for alleged murder in PHL

NEW YORK —Two North Carolina men were charged on Wednesday with killing a Filipino woman in 2012 in an international murder-for-hire plot, federal prosecutors in New York said.

Adam Samia, 41, and Carl David Stillwell, 47, were arrested at their homes in Roxboro, North Carolina, according to the office of Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara.

The two men are accused of traveling to the Philippines and murdering a woman there in February 2012 in exchange for a promised $35,000 each. The woman was shot multiple times in the face and left on a pile of garbage, prosecutors said.

Samia is a self-described "personal protection/security industry" professional trained in tactics and weapons, while Stillwell's resume claims he has worked at a North Carolina firm that provides firearms training, the indictment said.

The two men were charged with conspiring to murder and kidnap in a foreign country, using a firearm to commit a violent crime and conspiring to launder money and face up to life in prison if convicted.

The indictment unsealed in Manhattan federal court on Wednesday did not identify the victim or the person who allegedly hired the two men and did not offer any explanation for the plot.

The men were also accused of laundering the money they received for the job by sending funds from the Philippines in increments to unnamed individuals in the United States.

"As alleged in the indictment, Samia and Stillwell traveled as hired guns from North Carolina to the Philippines to commit a cold-blooded murder," Bharara said in a statement. "After their contract killing, they allegedly covered their tracks by conspiring to launder the blood-money back to the United States."

Lawyers for the two men, who are expected to appear in federal court in North Carolina on Thursday, were not immediately known. — Reuters