Barbara Opel

Barbara Opel, right, is escorted into court at the Snohomish County Courthouse.
Opel, accused of a murder-for-hire, could face the death penalty.
(Photo: Associated Press)

Barbara Opel listens with defense attorney Brian Phillips to opening statements
in her aggravated first-degree murder trial in Everett.
(Photo: Associated Press)

Barbara Opel (top) wanted her landlord Jerry Heimann (bottom) dead, so her 13-year-old daughter
Heather and her teen friends did the job.
(Photos courtesy the Seattle Times; photo illustration by Charles George)

Heather Opel, 14, waits at the Denny Juvenile Justice Center in Everett for today's sentencing.
Her love of basketball has helped her cope while in the center.
(Photo: Renee C. Byer/Seattle Post-Intelligencer)

Heather Opel was a star athlete at school. Here she poses in her Evergreen Middle School uniform.
(Photo: Family Photo)

Fourteen-year-old Heather Opel is led from the Snohomish County courtroom of Judge Linda Krese after
being sentenced to 22 years for her role in a brutal killing that police say was urged on by her mother.
(Photo: Dan DeLong/Seattle Post-Intelligencer)

The victim

Jerry Duane Heimann, 64.