Ex-Fugitive Admits Slaying Plot

Eight years after she fled Orange County, Alice Marie Reidhead pleaded guilty Friday to masterminding a plot to have her sister killed.

Reidhead, who is being held in Orange County Jail, was arrested by Cypress police less than two months ago, authorities said.

The circumstances of the arrest were not immediately known.

The case made headlines in 1990 when prosecutors charged Reidhead with trying to hire an undercover police officer to kill her sister, Karen Meadows, who then lived in Anaheim. Prosecutors said Reidhead wanted to avoid sharing an expected inheritance from their mother, who was not ill.

Meadows posted her sister’s bail and appeared on the talk show “Geraldo” to defend her. She later read transcripts of Reidhead’s conversations with undercover police.

Reidhead, now 43, will be sentenced June 2 and could face a maximum of nine years in state prison.

Deputy Public Defender Scott Sanders declined to elaborate on her whereabouts during the past eight years.