Police Charge Wife, Teen Daughter in Plot To Kill Manassas Man

The way police tell it, a 17-year-old Manassas teenager woke up her father in the early-morning hours of May 23, told him she heard noises outside and watched him leave the house, all the while knowing that someone was waiting there to kill him.

Flashlight in hand, her 36-year-old father walked outside to investigate when he noticed the shed door open, Manassas police spokesman Tim Neumann said. As the man looked inside, Neumann said, Thomas Bennett, 19, emerged from behind the shed with a baseball bat.

"He comes out with a bat and strikes him in the head several times," Neumann said.

The two men were still struggling when officers arrived minutes later, about 1 a.m., to respond to an emergency call about a burglary.

A week and a half after charging Bennett with malicious wounding, police said yesterday that there was no burglary. Instead, it was a murder-for-hire plot orchestrated by the victim's wife and daughter, police said. Police did not identify the father because he is a victim,

April Blasini, 35, and her daughter, who was not identified because she is a minor, have been charged with conspiring to commit murder for hire and aggravated malicious wounding.

Bennett, who police said had been dating the daughter, will be charged with attempted murder. He was carrying a machete in addition to the bat, police said.

"It was pretty devastating to the husband and father once he found out what really happened," Neumann said, adding that if the man had not held on to Bennett until police arrived, the truth might have never been discovered. "It could have very easily been a burglary that went bad, and we may have never known the circumstances of the murder for hire."

The man, reached at the family's house yesterday, declined to comment, saying through the closed front door that he wanted to be left alone to grieve. After the assault, police said, he was treated at a hospital for head injuries, including a concussion.

Prince William Commonwealth's Attorney Paul B. Ebert said that although there have been cases involving a spouse trying to kill the other, the Manassas incident was unusual.

"It's the first time I've ever had a child involved in trying to kill one of the parents," Ebert said. "It's extremely unusual, and the method that was chosen for ending this man's life was extremely brutal."

As authorities continue to investigate the motive, Ebert said they had been aware of domestic strife in the household. "There has been a history of marital discord," he said.