A former St. Louis middle school principal will spend the rest of his life behind bars for orchestrating the brutal murder of his pregnant girlfriend, a beloved elementary school teacher who was shot in the eye while working on baby shower invitations in her own bed.
Cornelius Green received two consecutive life sentences for hiring his longtime friend Phillip Cutler to kill Jocelyn Peters, who was 31 weeks pregnant with Green’s child when she was murdered on March 24, 2016. Cutler, 46, also received two consecutive life terms for carrying out the killing that U.S. District Judge Ronnie L. White called the “most heinous” crime he had seen in his career.
The shocking case, explored in a recent episode of CBS News’ true-crime series “48 Hours,” reveals a web of manipulation and betrayal that ended with the deaths of Peters and her unborn daughter, whom she planned to name Micah Leigh.
Green was the principal of Carr Lane Visual & Performing Arts Middle School. He was married but led Peters, a third-grade teacher at Horace Mann Elementary School, to believe he was divorcing his wife. Peters didn’t know Green was involved with multiple other women, at least one of whom he was also deceiving into believing they were building a life together.
This wasn’t Peters’ first pregnancy with Green. She had miscarried once before and terminated another pregnancy at his urging. But this time, the 30-year-old teacher was determined to keep her baby. That decision would cost her everything.
During the pregnancy, Green researched ways to poison the unborn baby by hiding crushed pills in oatmeal or yogurt, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Missouri. When that plan failed, he turned to murder-for-hire.
Green and Cutler, childhood friends from Muskogee, Oklahoma, planned the killing over a series of phone calls. To fund the murder, Green stole money from a school dance team fundraiser. On March 7, 2016, he sent Cutler a UPS package containing $2,500 in cash—using his school’s address as the return address.
“He literally stole from children to pay for killing his own child,” said Dr. Nicole Conaway, who was principal of Horace Mann Elementary when Peters worked there.
The details of the plot are chilling. On March 21, 2016, Cutler traveled from Oklahoma to St. Louis and stayed at Green’s residence. The following day, Green gave Cutler keys to both his white Kia Optima and Peters’ apartment. He also took Peters grocery shopping, purchasing a 10-pound bag of potatoes so Cutler could use one as a makeshift silencer to muffle the gunshot. Green then boarded an Amtrak train to Chicago to establish an alibi.
In the early morning hours of March 24, 2016, Cutler drove Green’s car to Peters’ Central West End apartment on West Pine Boulevard. He let himself in with Green’s keys and shot the pregnant teacher in the eye with a .380-caliber firearm while she lay in bed working on invitations for her baby shower. At 6:14 a.m., Cutler confirmed to Green that Peters and the baby had been killed. Green immediately purchased his return train ticket.
In a particularly cruel twist, Green then tried to get Peters’ mother, Lacey Peters, to check on her daughter—knowing full well she was already dead. When Lacey was unavailable, Green went to the apartment himself and called 911, pretending to have no knowledge of the murder.
The plot began to unravel that same night when Cutler was detained while attempting to retrieve the Kia Optima from the crime scene at Green’s direction. In a bizarre move captured on surveillance video, Cutler ate two pieces of paper from a notebook in his pocket, raising investigators’ suspicions about what evidence he was trying to destroy.
Green and Cutler were indicted on March 9, 2022, on federal charges of conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and murder-for-hire. Green maintained his innocence for eight years before pleading guilty on February 28, 2024—just two weeks before his trial was scheduled to begin. Cutler went to trial and was convicted by a jury in March 2024 after just over an hour of deliberation.
During Green’s sentencing hearing on June 25, 2024, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tiffany Becker highlighted the depths of his depravity. “The depravity of asking a mother to go find Jocelyn’s body, knowing she was dead, can’t be matched,” Becker told the court. Cutler had been sentenced to two consecutive life terms the previous week.
St. Louis Circuit Attorney Gabe Gore emphasized the lasting impact of the crime, stating that Green’s “devastating actions” continue to affect the victims’ family, colleagues, friends, and young students. Dr. Conaway described to the court how Peters’ murder devastated the school community, including one student who threatened self-harm, expressing a desire to be with his teacher.
Peters, described by colleagues as a “bright light” and “natural teacher,” paid the ultimate price for believing in a man who saw her and their child as obstacles to eliminate. Both Green and Cutler will spend the rest of their lives in federal prison without any chance of parole.
