Jailed murderer attempts to extort $925 from 75-year-old lady

A prison inmate serving three life sentences in the US has had an additional six years added to his sentence after threatening to kill a 75-year-old woman unless she sent him more than $925.

Darren Witmer, 45, is currently incarcerated at Maryland's Western Correctional Institution.

Witmer was handed three life sentences for killing an 83-year-old veteran in 1994 for almost $400; killing a 78-year-old man days later for $1325; and then strangling his cellmate to death in 2009.

He also made headlines in 1994 when he briefly escaped from jail.

In October 2015, Witmer mailed a note to a 75-year-old woman whose address he took six years ago from the records of the inmate he killed.

He claimed to have "people in position" ready to break into the woman's home, carry her into a car trunk, take her to a river and kill her if she didn't transfer $925 into his prison account.

"Trust me you won't even see it coming," Witmer wrote.

"You will die that’s how this will end so if you think this is a game then play it."

The elderly woman immediately alerted police, according to the Washington Post.

"She temporarily moved out of the state to calm any concern she had of this guy sending to other guys to, quote, 'get her'," Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office spokesperson Ramon Korionoff told WHAG.

Witmer pleaded guilty to one count of extortion by a written threat and had an additional six years added to his three life sentences.