Tara Lambert stood stick straight and had no reaction as a jury forewoman announced that jurors had found her guilty on one count of conspiracy to commit aggravated murder. The jury believed the state's evidence that showed Lambert had planned to kill Kellie Cooke, the mother of her two stepdaughters, and tried to hire a hitman to do it.

CIRCLEVILLE, Ohio� Tara Lambert stood stick straight and had no reaction as a jury forewoman announced that jurors had found her guilty on one count of conspiracy to commit aggravated murder.

The jury believed the state's evidence that showed Lambert had planned to kill Kellie Cooke, the mother of her two stepdaughters, and tried to hire a hitman to do it.

The jury of eight men and four women, however, acquitted Lambert on a second conspiracy to commit murder charge, that one for Lambert telling the hitman� who was actually an undercover sheriff�s deputy� to kill Cooke�s husband, Shawn, if he also happened to be home when the deed was done.

Jurors deliberated about 45 minutes.

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Prosecutors say they weren't surprised by that not guilty verdict, because the decision to have Shawn Cooke killed appeared to be more spur of the moment.

Both sides of the packed Pickaway Common Pleas courtroom, which included Lambert�s sister and her parents and more than two dozen friends and relatives of the Cookes, erupted into sobs as the verdicts were read.

For the Cooke family, this was a victory but the couple said nothing can restore their sense of security and safety.

�That woman tried to take away everything that matters to me,� said Shawn Cooke, who was still crying even some time later. �This has opened our eyes that there is evil in this world, true evil, and for us, nothing will ever be the same. There�s no way it can be.�

Kellie Cooke said her daughters haven�t seen their biological father� Lambert�s husband, Brandon� since August. She said the girls are scared and confused, and she doesn�t know what happens for the family next.

�We�ll heal but we�ll never feel secure,� she said.

Tara Lambert, a 33-year-old former model, was taken into custody after the verdict. As the deputy was moving her smart watch on her wrist to close the handcuffs, she looked away and asked about what would happen to her purse.

Judge P. Randall Knece ordered her held without bond until sentencing, which he set for Feb. 17.

Lambert was arrested on July 28 after she met with an undercover deputy sheriff posing as a hitman and gave him a photo of Kellie Cooke, her address and details about her vehicles and habits. She paid the man $125 as a down payment.

When asked what she wanted done, Lambert told the undercover deputy to throw Cooke into a lumber shredder. Lambert testified on Tuesday that she was just kidding.

Also on Tuesday, psychologist Jolie Brams testified on Lambert�s behalf and called her � developmentally damaged.�

She said Lambert drinks too much and abuses illegal prescription drugs and suffers from eating disorders and body-image issues that are so severe that when someone once commented on an ill-fitting sweater she immediately ran to her plastic surgeon for another of her more than two dozen plastic surgeries or procedures.

Bramstestified that Lambert was raised around violence, abandoned by her parents at a young age and was once raped.

In his closing argument, defense attorney James Kingsley reminded the jury of those things. And he told them that when Lambert� on a secretly recorded video� giggled and laughed with the man she thought was a hired gun, and when she jokingly suggested a wood chipper as a method, it was because she doesn�t know any better.

And then he walked over and pointed to the stiletto shoes that Lambert, a former model, was wearing in court again today.

�Don�t just judge a book by its cover, and don�t judge her by those shoes,� he said, drawing laughs from some of Lambert�s supporters. �Are the shoes inappropriate here? Maybe. Did I tell her not to wear them? Absolutely not because that�s what Jolie Brams testified about: Tara Lambert doesn�t know what�s appropriate for a situation. She�s childlike. Life�s a fantasy to her.�

Several people in the courtroom commented after the verdict was read that the next time they see Lambert, she'll be in a jailhouse jumpsuit and wearing rubber sandals.

She faces up to 11 years in prison when sentenced.