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A man accused of sexually assaulting an nine-year-old girl allegedly hired a neo-Nazi hitman to kill her and four members of her family.

Billy Warren Pierce, 44, allegedly asked a fellow inmate to carry out the killings as he waited trial in Pasco County Detention Centre in Florida for sexual assault against a juvenille.

Police say he was trying to cover his tracks by killing all the witnesses in the case - but instead the man he hired told authorities.

He reportedly offered to pay the man £the equivalent of 7,000 for the contract killings - and when he was arrested on Friday he allegedly tried to defend himself by saying: "But I haven't paid him any money yet."

The Pasco County Sheriff’s Office told the Tampa Bay Times that he now faces a charge of solicitation to commit murder on top of a 2017 charge of sexual assault of a juvenile.

Sheriff's deputies said he told the would-be murderer who the girl lived with, what she looked like, where her family worked and hung out, how to enter the house, what cars they drove and more.

He also told him that family members never locked their garage door and that they had a gas line in the back of the house that could be broken, deputies said.

And he described a dog door that he could crawl through.

Officials claimed Pierce was caught on audio soliciting the other inmate and signing a contract.

The next day, a detective visited Pierce in jail and interviewed him.