Fred Auston Wortman III
Special agents from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation have obtained indictments for a Memphis-area attorney accused of trying to hire hit men, on two separate occasions, to kill his wife.
At the request of 25th District Attorney General Mike Dunavant, TBI special agents began investigating Fred Auston Wortman III on June 4. During the course of the investigation, Wortman met with a TBI agent, who posed as a potential hit-man, and supplied him personal information about his wife and a down payment for the murder. Authorities arrested Wortman on June 5, and charged him with one count of solicitation of first-degree murder.
On July 1, while Wortman was in the custody of the Fayette County Sheriff’s Office, agents obtained information indicating Wortman approached an inmate in the jail and solicited him to kill his wife. Agents subsequently substantiated the information through additional investigative efforts.
On Monday, the Fayette County Grand Jury returned indictments for Wortman in connection to both incidents, charging the 39-year-old Collierville man with two counts of solicitation to commit first-degree murder and one count of attempted first-degree murder. At the time of this release, Wortman remained in the custody of the Fayette County Jail, where he was being held on $15,000,000 bond.