ST. LOUIS (KMOX) — A member of the Sweetie Pie's family faces federal murder-for-hire charges in the death of his nephew.
James "Timothy" Norman is accused of working with a Memphis woman to murder his nephew, 18-year-old Andre Montgomery, in 2016.
Sweetie Pie's is a family-owned restaurant in St. Louis that was featured as a reality TV show called "Welcome to Sweetie Pie's" that aired on the Oprah Winfrey Network from 2011 to 2018.
Federal prosecutors say Norman flew to St. Louis from Los Angeles to meet with Teria Ellis of Memphis. They used burner phones to allegedly hatch a plot to kill Montgomery at a house on Natural Bridge in north St. Louis.
Investigators placed Ellis's phone at the house at the time of the killing and placed her heading back to Memphis immediately following the killing – she also called Norman immediately following Montgomery's death. The phones stopped working when Norman flew back to Los Angeles.
Norman had taken out a $450,000 life insurance policy on his nephew in 2014, listing himself as the beneficiary. He's being held in Madison County, Mississippi without bond and charged with "conspiracy to use interstate commerce facilities in commission of murder-for-hire, resulting in death."