Alabama mother sentenced to life for hiring hitman to kill child's father

In the quiet town of Hartselle, Alabama, a custody dispute crossed into irreversible darkness when a mother chose violence over the courts, hiring a man to permanently silence the father of her child. Jaclyn Skuce, 43, was sentenced to life without parole for orchestrating the 2020 murder of Anthony Sheppard — a man who never made it to his own custody hearing. Her conviction is a sobering testament to how the fear of losing a child can, in the most tragic of human failures, become the very force that destroys one.