Misc. cases I

[Lady Cop]

she planted him in the herb garden.









Fox Tampa bay

First, Barbara Scott told relatives her husband left their Polk County home and went to Oklahoma to visit a sick friend.

Then, when friends from Oklahoma called to speak to Benny Scott, Barbara told them a different story — Benny had a throat problem and couldn't speak on the phone.

In reality, her 77-year-old husband was buried in the back yard of their Lake Alfred home under a garden of herbs.

His hands and legs were bound by ropes. He was shot in the back of his head.

On Tuesday, 66-year-old Barbara Scott — an ex-convict who served time for embezzlement in Oklahoma — was taken into custody and booked into the Polk County Jail after a grand jury indicted her on a charge of first-degree murder.

The bullet recovered from his skull was consistent with a .22-caliber projectile.

Detectives found a .22-caliber revolver and a box of .22 caliber ammunition in her dresser drawer.

The Polk County Sheriff's Office said Scott told detectives and relatives various stories about what happened to her husband.

At one point, she said Benny fell in the shower in January, hit his head and died. Later, she said she found him on the shower floor with a gun nearby and she assumed he killed himself.

Detectives later found a witness who said Barbara "expressed distain'' about having to care for her husband.

"Ms. Scott related she was also tired of Benny always wanting and needing her assistance," the Polk County Sheriff's Office said in a report.

The couple moved to Florida from Oklahoma sometime around 2009. Barbara was arrested in Oklahoma in 1987 on embezzlement charges. She was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison.

Barbara's daughter confronted her mother about her father's whereabouts late last month. They went to the Lake Alfred Police Department on March 26 and Barbara said she buried her husband. His body was unearthed the next day.