Doctor has court date on murder conspiracy charges
Published 10:09 am Wednesday, May 16, 2012
A Mississippi doctor charged with hiring men to kill his ex-wife’s divorce lawyer is scheduled to be in court Wednesday for a preliminary hearing.
Dr. Ralph Arnold Smith Jr. is charged with conspiring to kill Lee Abraham, who represented the Greenwood oncologist’s ex-wife during their divorce in the 1990s. Authorities say the plot led to a shootout on April 28 in Abraham’s office in Greenwood.
Police reports say Abraham called the attorney general’s office to say someone offered to sell him a gun that could implicate the doctor in a murder-for-hire plot. Investigators were waiting when two men arrived.
One suspect was killed in the shooting and another was seriously injured. The 70-year-old Smith is charged with capital murder in the death of the alleged hit man.
