Missouri principal Cornelius Green charged in murder of pregnant girlfriend Jocelyn Peters

Coelius Green, 35, has been charged in the murder of teacher Jocelyn Peters, 30, who was found shot dead in her Missouri flat on March 24 this year, St Louis Post-Dispatch reports. The unbo baby did not survive.

According to charging documents, Green paid his friend Phillip J Cutler $2500 to kill Peters.

Jocelyn Peters, 30, was found shot dead. Picture: Facebook/Jocelyn Peters

Coelius Green has been charged with ordering the murder of his pregnant girlfriend. Picture: St Louis Police DepartmentSource:Supplied

Police initially thought 36-year-old Cutler acted alone. But investigators became suspicious after finding out Green sent Cutler $2500 in cash on March 20, four days before the shooting.

CBS St Louis reports Green allegedly stole the hit money from Carr Lane Visual and Performing Arts Middle School, where he worked.

Court documents reveal Green picked up Cutler from a Missouri bus station after he arrived on a Greyhound bus from Oklahoma on March 21.

The next moing, Green left for Chicago but left Cutler with keys to his car and Peters’s apartment, court documents state.

Surveillance footage showed Green’s car parked in the carpark of Peters’s apartment about 3am on the day she was killed. There were no signs of forced entry into her apartment.

Jocelyn Peters was seven-months-pregnant when she was found shot dead inside her apartment. Picture: Facebook/Jocelyn PetersSource:Facebook

St Louis Post-Dispatch reports that, after Peters’s body was found, Green went with cops to the police station where he asked to use a phone to call his daughter.

He instead contacted his estranged wife and asked her to tell Cutler to move the car from Peter’s apartment. He reportedly didn’t know cops were listening in on the call.

Cutler was arrested in Oklahoma on June 9 and charged with two counts each of first-degree murder and armed criminal action in the fatal shooting of Peters.

Green was indicted on Thursday by the St Louis circuit attoey’s office, but the indictment is sealed until Tuesday. He is being held on $US3 million cash bail.

Philip J. Cutler (pictured) was allegedly paid by Coelius Green to kill Jocelyn Peters. Picture: Muskogee Sheriff's DepartmentSource:Supplied