MARION COUNTY, Fla. – A man offered a fellow inmate thousands of dollars to kill four people and “feed them to the pigs and alligators,” according to the Marion County Sheriff’s Office.
Deputies said they began investigating when an inmate at the Marion County Jail approached a corrections officer on Oct. 20 and said that Gary Bangstad offered him $4,000 and a car if he would kill four people.
Bangstad drew a map showing the residence where the four people lived and indicated where each person slept, according to the affidavit. He also gave the other inmate a handwritten and signed letter that read, in part, “shoot them & kill them & feed them to the pigs and alligators,” records show.
The note indicated that a fifth person might be at the residence and that person should be killed if he or she were there, the report said.
“Everybody in the house dead,” was written on the back of the map, according to the affidavit.
Bangstad tried to deny that he solicited the inmate to commit the murders, even when he was confronted with the note, investigators said.
He was arrested Wednesday on five counts of solicitation of murder.
Records show Bangstad is a former college professor with a doctoral degree.