NEW ALBANY, Ind. (WHAS11) -- Former New Albany Cafe Owner Laura Buckingham sits behind bars in Tennessee accused of trying to hire someone to murder her ex-boyfriend, the father of her child, Bradley Sutherland.
"Why? That's all I want to know, the only question I really have. The only thing I’d want to know, why, how, why," Sutherland said.
Sutherland was contacted by LMPD this week to tell him that police in the Knoxville area believed his ex-girlfriend, Laura Buckingham, tried to hire someone to kill him.
Buckingham recently moved to Tennessee, but continued to drive to Louisville on a regular basis as a part of a shared-custody agreement with Sutherland. He says that's the arrangement she had agreed to, but she had recently told him it was putting a financial burden on her.
Sutherland said that when police first told him of the allegations he thought it was a joke, but the reality of the charges are sinking in.
"It's really just all shock. I, today on the way home, it hit me, what she'd done, and I had to stop on the side of the road and collect myself. When it comes down to it, it’s all about my son, I’ve got, that’s all that really matters. I don't care what she did. I don't care how she did it, it doesn’t matter to me, the fact of the matter is that I now have my son," Sutherland said.
"That's shocking, it’s really shocking and it’s tragic and when I heard about it I just thought, oh my goodness," Ronald Carter, Buckingham's former landlord, said.
Ronald Carter was Buckingham's landlord for her café "Bread and Breakfast" located on Main Street in New Albany. WHAS11 interviewed Buckingham about the relocation plans for her New Albany business just this past September. Bread and Breakfast closed just before the holidays, around the time Carter said he let her out of her lease.
"There was some stress there, you could tell there was stress in her life and we felt bad for her we really did," Carter said. "I mean you could tell there were some emotional things going on there, we loved Laura, we support her, and but we could tell things were happening and it wasn't our place to get involved so we thought the best thing to do was just to let her out of her lease and move on."
"I hate it for her, you know I know she has had some issues because of the war, and things like that and she is a veteran and we love her for that and thank her for that service that she did, but it’s a tragedy it’s just a tragedy. If it is true than it’s a tragedy," Carter said.
The Roane County Sheriff's office said Buckingham had allegedly mentioned killing her ex-boyfriend Bradley Sutherland to her current boyfriend Joseph Chamblin who contacted law enforcement. They said Buckingham attempted to pay an undercover officer in the murder for hire plot.
According to the Knoxville News Sentinel, Buckingham's boyfriend Chamblin is one the marines infamous for a wartime video of him and other marines urinating on dead Taliban soldiers. The newspaper said Chamblin petitioned for an order of protection against Buckingham.
Buckingham is being held on a $150,000 bond. The son is now in Indiana with Sutherland.
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