John D. Orlowski Gets 22 1/2 Years for Murder for Hire

A federal judge sentenced a Beverly man to 22 1/2 years in prison yesterday for scheming to hire a cellmate to kill his estranged wife, young daughter, and mother-in-law in a “chilling’’ plot that only failed because the would-be hit man cooperated with authorities.

Federal Judge Douglas P. Woodlock said the egregiousness of John D. Orlowski’s offense called for harsher sentencing than recommended by federal guidelines, which would have required him to serve at least 20 years in prison. Woodlock had also rejected a tentative plea agreement in April, whereby Orlowski would have served 12 years in federal prison.

“The short of it is that I cannot conceive a more heinous crime that was not in fact carried out but was a planned attempt,’’ Woodlock said at a morning hearing in US District Court in Boston...


Blog Author Note: Had the protection order, which John violated, had not been taken seriously (he had to serve 60 days), and had the inmate not "snitched," we would have been reading about another "sudden" and "tragic" murder of an "estranged" wife. These murders are calculated...premeditated.