Woman Stages Own KIDNAPPING To catch ex-partner who paid a hitman $20,000 to murder her and her new boyfriend

A court has been shown staged photographs of a man pretending to be dead and a woman pretending to be kidnapped that they posed for with police's advice to catch their partners who had hired a hitman to kill them both.

The images show Meghan Verikas, 33, and Mack McDaniel, 51,posing for detectives who were trying to snare their former partners, Leon Jacob, 39, and Valerie McDaniel, 48.

The McDaniels were divorced at the time and Verikas had ended her relationship with Jacob but Valerie still owed her ex-husband $1.25million from the settling of their estates and Jacob was the subject of a protection order stopping him from contacting his ex, who he had been stalking.