A woman from New Jersey who was captured on video paying a hit man to kill her husband said she wanted him dead "because it's easier than divorcing him."
Julie Merfeld, 21, pleaded guilty to solicitation to murder in Michigan last month, and this week, prosecutors released video of her meetings with an undercover police officer she thought was a killer for hire.
The couple is from Keyport, N.J.
"I just want to make it as non-suspicious as possible," Merfeld tells the undercover officer during one meeting where she consulted her phone to try and plan the date of the hit.
In another meeting, she says, "as terrible as it sounds, it's easier than divorcing him, you know, I didn't have to worry about the judgment of my family, I didn't have to worry about breaking his heart."
She then tells the officer to make it "painless."
"I don't want him to suffer," she adds.
He says he plans to shoot her husband in the face. She nods.
According to MLive.com, Merfeld planned to pay for the killing in installments from her husband's $400,000 life insurance policy.
Merfeld's brother in Keyport, while admitting he wasn't close to his sister, told NBC 4 New York their mother was distraught.
"It's a little depressing, hearing her talk like that. She took it so lightly," said Nicholas Antosaccio.
Antosaccio said he was not aware of any tension between Merfeld and her husband.
"She was it was all right. She said it was good," he said. "She wasn't unhappy, didn't seem it."
Her husband asked the judge not to give her jail time. She is set to be sentenced July 30.
-- Brian Thompson contributed to this report.