A plea hearing is scheduled for Thursday for one of the two people charged with killing a drug informant in Mingo County back in 2005.

Forty-six year old Valerie Friend from North Matewan is set to enter a guilty plea in front of Judge John Copenhaver in Charleston Federal Court at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday.

Friend and her co-defendant, 60-year old George Lecco from Red Jacket, had been preparing to go to trial for a second time on charges of killing 33-year old Carla Collins.

Federal prosecutors say Lecco offered to pay Friend in cocaine to kill Collins to protect his cocaine business that was being run out of a pizza shop.

Collins' body was found in a shallow grave in a remote area of Mingo County.  She had been beaten and shot.

Both Lecco and Friend were convicted of the crime in 2007 in a joint trial and sentenced to the death penalty.  But problems with a member of the jury lead to Judge Copenhaver ordering another trial earlier this year.

That juror did not disclose that he was under federal investigation for child pornography at the time he sat on that jury.

This time, they were to be tried separately.  Attorneys for both planned to blame the other for the murder.

Lecco is still scheduled to go on trial later this month.