Teen charged with plotting a murder now accused of threatening to put a jailer on a ‘hit list’

A Benton City teen awaiting trial on an alleged murder plot has a new charge for threatening to put the name of a detention center employee on a “hit list.”

Jeremiah D. Cunningham, 17, allegedly told a fellow teen inmate that he is the head of a “hit group” based in a small Idaho town east of Moscow.

He also claimed he could use the Kennewick detention facility’s computers to access the “black market,” court documents show.

The comments passed on to the intended target were taken as if Cunningham meant to either harm or kill the employee, documents said.

Cunningham is scheduled to appear March 27 in Benton County Juvenile Court to enter a plea to felony harassment.

Alleged plot to kill classmate

The former Ki-Be student has been locked up in the Benton-Franklin Juvenile Detention Center on $500,000 bail since November 2017.

He is charged as an adult with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder for plotting to kill a high school classmate he didn’t like.

Cunningham had been set to plead guilty to that charge in Benton County Superior Court, but his attorney on Thursday asked to continue the hearing.

In the new case, Kennewick police Officer Avery Smith was called to the detention center Feb. 6 to investigate a threat.

Rudy Ruelas, a detention supervisor, said they were concerned about a comment made by a teen, and had the officer talk with the intended target, a detention security worker.

‘Hit list’ outside detention center

That employee said he’d been approached by a teen, who said another inmate nicknamed “Drako” wanted him to pass on a message, according to court documents.

The security worker was told “if he continued to flirt with female juvenile inmates,” he would be placed on a hit list by people outside the detention facility, documents said.

The employee’s job duties include routinely interacting with the boys and girls in the detention facility on Canal Drive in Kennewick, court documents said.

The teen who passed on the message eventually told detention staff that it was Cunningham who allegedly asked him to make the threat. He said he was told not to name Cunningham.

Officer Smith then met with that teen, who said Cunningham also claimed to be involved with a hit group in Deary, Idaho.

He said Cunningham’s nickname inside the detention center is “Draken,” so he used Drako when passing on the message because it was similar.

Denied threat to harm

Cunningham “confirmed many details of the youth’s version, but said he did not intend to communicate a threat of harm” to the employe, said the documents.

Cunningham is in juvenile detention until he turns 18 on July 10. He’ll then be transferred to the Benton County jail in Kennewick.

His co-defendant in the Benton City case, Fe H. Hadley, will turn 18 on April 3. She’s in juvenile detention on $50,000 bail.

Hadley has a May 20 trial on the same charge of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.

Cunningham and Hadley’s cases were automatically bumped up to Superior Court because of their age — both were 16 at the time — and the seriousness of the allegations.

Prosecutors say the two took steps to kill Ryan Vaughn on Nov. 15, 2017, behind the Ki-Be Red Apple Market in Benton City.

Hadley’s alleged role was to lure Vaughn, 18, to the lot behind the market. Some of their alleged plotting was caught on the market’s security video.

Conspiracy against fellow student

Authorities reportedly found numerous text messages on Vaughn’s cellphone in which Hadley gave a specific time, date and location for a meet-up, court documents said.

Cunningham admitted to detectives that he planned to sneak up behind Vaughn and stab him with a knife during lunch hour from Kiona-Benton City High School.

The only reason he didn’t follow through is because some other students foiled his plans when they saw a suspicious masked man behind the store, documents said.

Cunningham claimed he threw the knife in a dumpster behind the school.

Hadley and Vaughn had dated for one week, but Vaughn ended it because Cunningham “was getting too protective over her,” court documents said.

A third teen allegedly helped Cunningham scope out the store’s security cameras and was supposed to keep Vaughn behind the market during the attack.

Gabriel D. Pfliger was not charged until August 2018 with second-degree assault with a deadly weapon.

His case is in Juvenile Court, where a judge ordered he be kept even after Pfliger is 18.

Records show Pfliger has been undergoing mental health evaluations after his competency to proceed with the case was first questioned in November.

The most recent evaluation was ordered March 6, the records show.

This story was originally published March 22, 2019 at 12:38 PM.