By JUSTIN STORY

justin.story@bgdailynews.com

Two men will be sentenced later this week in connection with a 2020 Simpson County murder that one man paid the other to commit.

Freddy Gonzalez, 40, and Xavior Posey, 26, will appear Tuesday in U.S. District Court to be sentenced on the charge of murder through use of a firearm during a crime of violence.

The pair were accused of conspiring to kill Brian Russell, who was shot to death at his home in Franklin on Dec. 30, 2020.

Gonzalez previously acknowledged in court that he supplied a firearm to Posey to commit the crime and paid him, and court documents published excerpts from text messages purportedly showing the two men talking in code about the homicide, referring to the act as “cleaning the kitchen.”

Gonzalez had been in a relationship with Russell’s ex-wife in the months leading up to the shooting, but she and Russell reconciled days before his death.

The codefendants face between 25 and 40 years in prison, and new details emerged about the crime through sentencing memoranda filed Friday by attorneys involved in the case.

Assistant U.S. Attorney David Weiser, seeking a 40-year sentence for Gonzalez, said in a sentencing memorandum that the offense was a “cold-blooded, calculated murder orchestrated by Gonzalez because he was angry that his girlfriend rejected him for (Russell).”

“A forty-year sentence will reflect the seriousness of Gonzalez’s offense – the jealousy, the rage, the stalking, the callous planning and the ruthless execution,” Weiser said in the filing.

Among the details revealed in the memorandum was that Gonzalez had tried to recruit another person to commit the murder, but that person declined, and that Gonzalez offered to pay Posey $2,000, along with a pickup truck and a pay raise at the case that Gonzalez operated in Franklin, if Posey killed Russell.

“Gonzalez knew that Posey used illegal narcotics, and as a further inducement he falsely told Posey that (Russell) was a drug dealer and that (Russell) probably had marijuana and methamphetamine in his house,” Weiser’s filing said. “Posey agreed, and Gonzalez gave Posey a gun and ammunition to murder (Russell).”

According to the filing, cellphone records collected during the investigation showed that Gonzalez called six different gun stores and pawn shops on Dec. 24, 2020.

Another new disclosure was that Gonzalez test-drove a Chevrolet Silverado from a Bowling Green dealership, took the vehicle to a Walmart and made a copy of the ignition key, and after the dealership closed that night, Gonzalez and Posey drove there and Posey used the copied key to steal the truck.

The truck, however, was stolen from Posey around Christmas, 2020, and on Dec. 27 or 28, 2020, Gonzalez later drove Posey close to Russell’s residence and showed a picture of Russell taken from social media.

“Gonzalez expressed his frustration that (Russell) was still alive, and threatened to renege on the remainder of their deal and kill (Russell) himself if Posey would not do the job quickly,” Weiser’s filing said. “Posey reiterated his interest in murdering (Russell) for payment, and Gonzalez gave Posey more ammunition and paid him between $300 and $400.”

The day before the shooting, Gonzalez texted Russell’s ex-wife in order to confirm that Russell would be home alone that night, court records show.

That night, Posey called a friend, Andy Schmucker, and asked him for a ride to Franklin.

Posey smoked meth on the ride there and informed Schmucker he had been hired to kill someone, according to court records.

Posey offered Schmucker $1,000 to drive him to Russell’s house, which Schmucker accepted.

When Posey knocked on Russell’s door, he said he had car trouble and was in need of jumper cables, and when Russell opened the door, he was shot three times, according to the sentencing memorandum.

Schmucker pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact to a murder for hire and awaits sentencing.

A day or two after the shooting, Posey and Gonzalez disassembled the murder weapon and cleaned it with bleach, Posey was paid another $200 or $300, and the pair drove to the banks of the Barren River to throw out the gun parts, according to Weiser’s sentencing memorandum.

Gonzalez contacted the Franklin Police Department in the hours after the murder and claimed that he had received threatening text messages related to the shooting and that Russell’s ex-wife accused him of involvement.

When police searched a car belonging to Russell’s ex-wife, they found a tracking device under the steering wheel, and Gonzalez later called the FPD and admitted to secretly installing the device, resulting in him being arrested on a stalking charge.

A search warrant for his cellphone revealed the text exchanges with Posey, and when police located Posey on Jan. 9, 2021, they found a hand-drawn map of the inside of the house of Russell’s ex-wife.

Posey claimed that Gonzalez gave him the map so that he could rob Russell’s ex-wife after shooting Russell, “which Gonzalez believed would make (Russell’s ex-wife) more inclined to continue her relationship with Gonzalez,” according to court records.

Defense attorney Brian Butler, who along with attorney Michael Denbow represents Gonzalez, filed a sentencing memorandum requesting a 25-year sentence for Gonzalez.

Butler argued that the crime to which Gonzalez pleaded guilty was “entirely inconsistent with the character he has exhibited his entire life” and that Gonzalez hired Posey while in the midst of a mental health spiral brought on by several circumstances, including the recent ending of his relationship.

Butler disclosed that Gonzalez suffered sexual abuse at the hands of a family acquaintance for several years in childhood, but grew up to maintain steady employment and serve for several years in the National Guard, earning a number of distinctions.

In 2020, Gonzalez met and began dating Russell’s ex-wife, and was offered a chance to own and run a cafe at The Mint in Franklin, but struggled that fall with parenting his children, fixing and cleaning his parents’ home and navigating business pressures related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In October of that year, Russell’s ex-wife ended the relationship to get back together with Russell.

“Freddy was already overcome by the pressures he faced, but when coupled with the loss of his partner … with whom he was deeply in love, he found himself at a new low,” Butler said in his filing. “Freddy began to struggle severely with his mental health – the parental and sexual abuse he suffered in his childhood had left him particularly susceptible to abandonment issues. He was seeing a counselor, but he unfortunately became so depressed that he contemplated, and eventually attempted, ending his own life.”

Gonzalez’s relationship rekindled in November of 2020, only to end the following month, court records show, and Butler said that Gonzalez “found himself at a new low” with this development.

“He was again threatening suicide, and his instability began to alter his perception of reality,” Butler said, adding that this led to Gonzalez constantly contacting his former girlfriend and begging her to reconsider. “As one would expect of friends, he discussed this with Posey. Eventually, he became so desperate to accomplish (reconciliation), he tragically hired Posey to kill Brian Russell.”

Butler later said that the crimes do not represent how Gonzalez otherwise comported himself in life because “Freddy was not himself at the time.”

“His prior attempt to take his own life is evidence enough of the extremely poor mental health he was suffering from in late 2020,” Butler’s filing said. “He had been on the brink of a mental collapse for several months and, while he made attempts at doing so through counseling, he had never truly resolved the problem … Freddy had nothing to distract him from his internal and external struggles, and he began to act rashly and extremely as a result of that.”