A man sentenced to 35 years in prison due to his part in a murder-for-hire scheme died on Wednesday morning.
Jeffrey Sibley, 66, died around 2:30 a.m., according to Anna Black, a spokesperson for the Maine Department of Corrections.
Sibley had been sentenced to 35 years in prison in July of 1998 on a murder charge for the shooting death of Aaron White of Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1996 on Interstate 95 near Kittery, according to an Associated Press report on his sentencing.
According to court records, White’s death was linked to a scheme in California involving a White Plains, New York, businessman who prosecutors say hired Sibley to assassinate five men.
Sibley never carried out the scheme, the AP reported. But White, who had befriended Sibley when the two worked as plumbers in Vermont, was killed because he was aware of the assassination plot and used that knowledge to try to leverage money from Sibley, prosecutors said.
While the cause of Sibley’s death was not released, he was attended by a medical official and his death was reported to the attorney general’s office and state medical examiner.