Escondido

A teacher’s aide accused of hiring two teen-age boys to kill her estranged husband pleaded not guilty Monday in Vista Superior Court to multiple charges in the case.

Among the charges filed against Roberta Pearce, 41, are murder, conspiracy and special-circumstances allegations, which could result in the death penalty if she is convicted.

Pearce was also charged during a short hearing before Judge Runston G. Maino with two counts of soliciting for murder two other teen-agers who refused her request to kill her husband.

Pearce was also charged Monday with two counts of providing drugs to the group of students who frequented her house in the weeks before her husband’s death and with two counts of having sex with a pair of minor boys.

Prosecutors contend that Pearce, a teacher’s aide for students with learning disabilities at Orange Glen High School in Escondido, wanted her husband, Robert (Wayne) Pearce, killed so she could collect $200,000 in life insurance and keep her house, which would have been sold under terms of her pending divorce.

Wayne Pearce, 40, died after he was attacked outside his Cardiff apartment Jan. 31 by two assailants wielding a knife and hatchet. In April, two 15-year-old Orange Glen freshmen pleaded guilty to the slaying and implicated Roberta Pearce as the mastermind behind it.