Oklahoma native Tonia Mullins used text messages to contact a hit man to snuff out her lover’s wife. Mullins conspired with her lover, Army soldier Michael Andrew Crawford, to have his wife sent packing out of this universe. Things did not work out as planned for Mullins, fortunately.

Unfortunately for Mullins, but fortunately for us, the texts she sent remain. Here is one particularly ridiculous exchange:

Co-conspirator Robin Berry: "Well maybe I can het friend n trade something he owes me big favors anyway"
Tonia Mullins: "If I can do ne thang let me know. Robin I swear I will give the $ when it comes n … that is n no way a problem … as long as accident I."

Mullins and her friend Robin Berry had gotten no further than discussion of price before police were tipped off and the whole, silly enterprise was put to a close. An undercover agent with the Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation arrested Mullins and her co-conspirators easily. The plotters plead guilty earlier this month.

Next time, use telegrams, not text messages.

Peek has responded to consumer suggestions regarding their email only handheld device. They upgraded the device last night, giving it the ability to view image attachments and send text messages. The texting service works through an SMS email gateway. The unit is available now for those who love to email on the go, without the cumbersome addition of voice chat.

AT&T reports they experienced the largest spike in text messaging in company history on Tuesday during the election. The company reports that in the hour following the announcement that Barack Obama had won the election, text messaging traffic across its network surged about 44 percent – the highest spike in company history.

This smashed New Years Eve, which was the previous record holder. A recent Nielsen study indicates that U.S. consumers now use their cell phones for text messaging more often than for talking. In third quarter 2008 earnings, AT&T reported more than 64 billion text messages across it’s network.

The Peek, email-only, device has been the subject praise lately, especially since it made the list for Time’s "Gadget of the Year." The handheld, released two months ago, has undergone a $20 price cut. It can be yours for $79.95.

The service for the device will still cost $19.95 but in a couple of weeks will be rolling out unlimited text messaging for all users. The text messaging added assumes that cell phones can receive and send messages to and from an email address. Not true SMS but I guess it works.

Gmail has now allowed users to send text messages through it’s Gchat function. The option is experimental, so you’ll have to access it through the Labs tab inside of settings. Your messages will appear as a 406 number, and the rest of your number will solidify once you’ve sent your first text.

Many instant message services have offered this functionality for a while, so it’s nice that Google are on point as well.