TEMPE, Ariz. -- Tempe police detectives have arrested a man after they said an investigation revealed that he and an accomplice were plotting to kill a 22-year-old sexual assault victim.

Jermorrow Hendrix, 36, was taken into custody and booked into Tempe City Jail on one count of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.

Hendrix and Matthew Awad, 22, were both inmates at the Maricopa County Jail when they developed a plan to kill the victim planning to testify in Awad's upcoming trial, police said.

An investigation revealed that Awad was going to pay Hendrix to kill the victim sometime between Hendrix's Sept. 6 release from the Department of Corrections prison in Florence and the trial scheduled to begin on Sept. 15, detectives said.

Detectives said Hendrix had requested some money up front to get a gun and other items needed to carry out the murder agreement. Part of the plan was to make the murder look like a carjacking or robbery, investigators said.

Tempe police detectives said they arrested Hendrix prior to his release from prison.

Awad has been incarcerated since Sept. 6, 2007 awaiting trial on a sexual assault incident that occurred in Tempe in January 2007, police said. He remains in custody and now faces similar murder charges.