The following are my thoughts – not facts.
MS hired CWW and promised to pay him a substantial amount from the life insurance proceeds. They're such lifelong buddypals, two sides of the same coin, twins separated at birth, soulmates, whatever they are, there was no need to speak of specific amounts between them. That CWW testified that they didn't discuss a set amount doesn't bother me.
JRR was not involved in the private, two-hour planning session the night before the wedding.
CWW hired JRR to help with driving such a long distance in a short period of time. A fee of $10,000 was promised to JRR for his participation in the entire trip plus the help with the murder if needed (evidently it was). I don't discount the idea that CWW also wanted the company of his protege.
I don't believe there was any communication between MS and JRR. I think CWW made another judgement error involving JRR and telling him too much. He would have been better off hiring a stranger who knew nothing of MS. Luckily for prosecution, CWW told him too much and JRR confessed to his gf.
MS sent some cash before the murder trip to help with travel expenses and incidentals – a little carrot to dangle – a taste of the riches to come. I also believe MS left more cash for CWW and possibly JRR too at the murder scene.
I believe that if JRR goes to trial, his defense will raise the potential mitigation of JRR being a bit of a victim of CWW. A rudderless follower in need of a father-figure and CWW took full advantage of that weakness. JRR was deluded enough to think he was doing right by the mother of his child and future family security by earning money even if it was by murdering someone. CWW: “You've supporting a girlfriend, her two children and you have your own child on the way. Think of what you can do for your family with this kind of money!”
I believe that JRR is oddly, the most normal of them all. I believe that his life could have gone another way had he not met CWW. He may have been a thief before this, but not violent like CWW and MS.
TaySho has some sense of what's right, but I can't get past knowing she was a-ok with him going off to commit burglaries– felonies that would put him back in prison even if he'd never left the state. In another state no less, another violation. JRR took a major gamble and it failed. Better to be in prison for parole violation and robbery than for murdering someone for money. Better to have had a gf who begged him not to go or say that she would leave him if he risked their future by committing any crime at all. Oh, well.