A mother was arrested Wednesday and charged with conspiring to murder the woman her son is charged with raping.

Investigators say Linda Littrell and her son, Jason Bridgewater, who remains in jail awaiting a retrial on the rape charge, asked a Monroe County jail inmate to kill the woman who accused Bridgewater of breaking into her home, tying her up with a hair dryer chord and sexually assaulting her in July 2009.

Bridgewater provided the inmate with documents and background information on the victim, Monroe County Sherriff’s detective Brad Swain said.

When the inmate was released from jail, Littrell met with him and provided the mechanisms to try and commit the homicide, Swain said.

The man was to kill the victim before she could testify against Bridgewater in the retrial scheduled for August. The first trial, in which Bridgewater faced charges of rape with a deadly weapon, burglary and two counts of deviate sexual conduct, resulted in a hung jury in April.

Swain said the man was told to sneak up to the victim at a night club and inject a lethal combination of prescription drugs into her body.

If this plan proved unsuccessful, he was to shoot the victim with a gun to be provided by Littrell.

The inmate brought the plot to the attention of the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office in early July, and they began working with the Bloomington Police Department’s special investigations unit.  Over the next three weeks, officers recorded the meetings between the man and Littrell.

“These recordings confirmed that the inmate was being truthful, and Littrell was arrested,” Swain said.

Littrell is charged with conspiracy to commit murder, a Class A felony.

The Monroe County Prosecutor’s Office is preparing similar charges for Bridgewater.

The victim remains in a safe location, officials said, and the investigation is ongoing.

“This wouldn’t have been possible without the assistance of the skills and equipment of the Bloomington Police detective division,” Swain said.