LAND O' LAKES, Fla. — Pasco County Sheriff's detectives arrested inmate Billy Warren Pierce, Jr. for allegedly trying to hire a fellow detention center inmate to kill his reported young victim and her family.

• Billy Warren Pierce Jr. charged with sexual battery on juvenile younger than 9 years old
• Inmate: Pierce Jr. offered $9,000 for death of victim, mother, father, sister and uncle
• Detention Center staff seized contract signed by Pierce

"The crimes against children are, in my opinion, the worst of the worst. When you hire somebody to kill said children because you committed an offense against them, I don't think, personally, there's anything worse than that," said Major Crimes Detective James Hicks.

According to the arrest report, the inmate first reported the alleged request from Billy Warren Pierce Jr. to detention center staff on August 22.

"These kind of things come up from time to time inside the jail, and we have to vet it out. We have to make sure our witness is telling the truth," said Lt. Luby Fields. 

Pierce is currently awaiting trial on charges of capital sexual battery on a juvenile younger than nine years old. The inmate told detectives Pierce offered him $9,000 to kill the alleged victim, along with her mother, father, sister, and uncle. 

The report states Pierce was friends with the father of the victim and had been to the house several times. The inmate said Pierce told him he could get into the house through a door the family typically kept unlocked and even suggested breaking a gas line in the back of the house and running it into a window so gas could leak into the house.

"We learned things through the witness that the only way the witness would've known these things was to have gotten them from Mr. Pierce. Mr. Pierce gave specific and detailed information that only Mr. Pierce would know," said Luby.

Hicks said detention center staff also seized a contract signed by Pierce.

"It basically goes through the details on the members that needed to be murdered. Mr. Pierce initialed by the amount he's going to pay the inmate," Hicks said.

Hicks said during the investigation, a conversation between Pierce and the inmate outlining the plan was captured on a digital recording device. 

When Pierce was questioned about the alleged plot, Hicks said he initially denied it. When he was told he was being arrested for solicitation of murder, Pierce reportedly responded, "But I haven't paid him any money yet."