Speaker 1: Would you raise your right handswer do you soundly declaring
Speaker 1: a firm and the families of Burdery that the testimony
Speaker 1: you should give should be the truth, though truths about
Speaker 1: the truth? I do. You've heard short excerpts from this
Speaker 1: deposition in previous episodes, and I told you i'd explain
Speaker 1: it later. Well, that's what we're gonna do now. And
Speaker 1: that term deposition is going to come up a lot,
Speaker 1: So for those who aren't sure what it means, just
Speaker 1: know that it's testimony taken under oath to be used
Speaker 1: as evidence in a court case. How could you say
Speaker 1: you name? Please, Sir Lawrence Thomas Horn. I'm going to
Speaker 1: be asking you a series of questions during this deposition.
Speaker 1: Lawrence Horne sat down for this deposition at one am
Speaker 1: on July six at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Maryland.
Speaker 1: Do you have any questions about that Millie Horne's two
Speaker 1: sisters and her daughter Tiffany had filed the civil suit
Speaker 1: to keep him from inheriting his son's one point seven
Speaker 1: million dollar estate. Did you ever have any discussions or
Speaker 1: were you present at any discussions about what would happen
Speaker 1: to Trevor's estate if Millie died. If Millie Millie died, Yes,
Speaker 1: if Millie and Trevor died, Okay, say that again. Now,
Speaker 1: any discussions of what would happen to Trevor's estate if
Speaker 1: Millian Trevor died. Did I have any discussions? Yes? This
Speaker 1: deposition is stunning to listen to his tone, the way
Speaker 1: he takes his time in answering certain questions, the way
Speaker 1: he dodges others. Lawrence would sit through two days of
Speaker 1: this in pursuit of Trevor's estate. We thought we had
Speaker 1: done well for this family. That's Attorney John Marshall. He
Speaker 1: helped win that settlement money, and yet we created the
Speaker 1: monster by doing well. I don't think any of us
Speaker 1: regret what we did. It's just you don't know what
Speaker 1: people are capable of. Marshall referred Millie's family to Attorney
Speaker 1: Glenn Cooper, whose voice you here questioning Lawrence on the tape,
Speaker 1: and his co council Trish Weaver. Within the week that
Speaker 1: the murders had occurred, Millie's sisters Elaine and Maryland came
Speaker 1: to the firm and they basically said, you know, they
Speaker 1: firmly believed that Lawrence Horn was responsible for the murder
Speaker 1: of their sister and their nephew, as well as Janie Saunders.
Speaker 1: The family started this process ten days after the murders
Speaker 1: because there was a sense of urgency here. It was
Speaker 1: the family's concern that he would try to himself get
Speaker 1: control of the estate, distribute the money to himself, and
Speaker 1: you know, by the time something happened down the road,
Speaker 1: it would be too late and the money would be gone.
Speaker 1: It was a case that would run parallel l to
Speaker 1: the police investigation and provide law enforcement with a number
Speaker 1: of insights and leads. Here's Lawrence's defense attorney from the
Speaker 1: criminal trial, Jeff O'Toole, who remembers the deposition. Well, he
Speaker 1: was torn between keeping very careful and trying to keep
Speaker 1: his eye on the prize with the money, while at
Speaker 1: the same time trying not to implicate himself in the
Speaker 1: murder case. And I think Lawrence Horn thought he was
Speaker 1: smart enough to do both. I'm Jasmine Morris from My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Hit Home Media. This is Hitman. At
Speaker 1: the time Lawrence sat down for this deposition almost a
Speaker 1: year and a half into the criminal investigation looking into
Speaker 1: who murdered Milly and Trevor Horn and Janice Saunders. Detectives
Speaker 1: had compiled a ton of circumstantial evidence. There were surveillance
Speaker 1: tapes of Millie's house found in Lawrence's apartment, a map
Speaker 1: of Millie's neighborhood, and even an accidental recording on his
Speaker 1: answering machine that seemed to be him in the contract killer,
Speaker 1: confirming the hit. As we've noted, everyone thought Lawrence was
Speaker 1: behind this, but he had an airtight alibi. He'd recorded
Speaker 1: himself sitting in his apartment in l A at the
Speaker 1: time of the murders, and the alleged hit man, James Perry,
Speaker 1: had left behind no fingerprints, no DNA footprints, or physical evidence.
Speaker 1: The police had discovered that Perry bought the How To
Speaker 1: Book hit Man, a technical manual for independent contractors, and
Speaker 1: it laid out what investigators called a blueprint for the crimes.
Speaker 1: In fact, he seemed to have followed something like two
Speaker 1: dozen of its recommendations for a successful hit. But again
Speaker 1: that was all circumstantial, and what investigators were really struggling
Speaker 1: with was that there was no actual connection between Lawrence
Speaker 1: Horn and James Perry, so that whole time Lawrence was free,
Speaker 1: just going about his life trying to pull off the
Speaker 1: final stages of his plan. What was that year like
Speaker 1: where your dad was just out there? It was terrifying
Speaker 1: for me. I mean, I was an emotional wreck. This
Speaker 1: is from one of the many interviews I did with
Speaker 1: his daughter Tiffany, who was eighteen at the time of
Speaker 1: the murders. I was afraid that my dad would actually
Speaker 1: come after me because I had information, and I was
Speaker 1: one of the people that, you know, gave the police
Speaker 1: so much of his background to kind of show them
Speaker 1: that my dad could do that. In Just two months
Speaker 1: after the murders, Lawrence came back to Maryland. Supposedly he
Speaker 1: was consulting with attorneys on custody issues. Millie's sister, Elaine
Speaker 1: had been awarded temporary already in ship of Trevor's twin sister, Tamielle,
Speaker 1: which wouldn't be surprising given how cautious he was about
Speaker 1: making sure his daughters wouldn't be home the night of
Speaker 1: the murders. I think he set it up the way
Speaker 1: he did because I think he really did not want
Speaker 1: me and my sister to be murdered. That's why he
Speaker 1: was calling to find out where my sister was and
Speaker 1: making sure I was at school because I really do
Speaker 1: believe that he thought that was salvaging at least some
Speaker 1: of his family, and that I would take ownership of
Speaker 1: my sister because I was eighteen, and move her out
Speaker 1: to California with him and his family. Remember Lawrence's nickname
Speaker 1: back in his navy days was your man with the plan.
Speaker 1: And maybe he thought his plan was really working. He'd
Speaker 1: evade justice, he'd get the one point seven million dollars,
Speaker 1: and not just the money, but his daughters too. But
Speaker 1: Millie's sisters were a lot like she was, tough, determined, willful,
Speaker 1: like these steel magnolias who looked out for one another,
Speaker 1: and they were never going to let him near Tammielle,
Speaker 1: Tiffany or the estate. So in Maryland there is something
Speaker 1: called the slayer's role again, Trish Weaver. It stands for
Speaker 1: the very basic proposition that if you are responsible for
Speaker 1: killing someone, you don't get to inherit from them, Okay,
Speaker 1: So the slayer's rule. It's important that we understand this
Speaker 1: in order to understand what's happening in Lawrence's deposition. Crime
Speaker 1: shouldn't pay. It's a principle that goes all the way
Speaker 1: back to the beginnings of common law. The Romans had
Speaker 1: a maxim our engineer Jacopo Penzo actually speaks Latin. I'll
Speaker 1: let him tell you. It translates to no one can
Speaker 1: derive an advantage from his own wrong. Along the way,
Speaker 1: you see, it gets implemented in different societies. In the
Speaker 1: Middle Ages, kings made sure that anyone found to have
Speaker 1: committed a felony really paid they had to give up
Speaker 1: their property rights. The US actually didn't have a similar
Speaker 1: rule until six This case is a little tricky, but
Speaker 1: the version is a guy took a life insurance policy
Speaker 1: out on his friend, then killed him. When the insurance
Speaker 1: company refused to pay, he sued them for the money.
Speaker 1: It went all the way to the Supreme Court, who
Speaker 1: said it would be a reproach to the jurisprudence of
Speaker 1: the country if one could recover insurance money payable on
Speaker 1: the death of a party whose life he had feloniously taken. Morally,
Speaker 1: it makes perfect sense. However, it can be tough to apply,
Speaker 1: Like what if it's a car crash, so you're guilty
Speaker 1: of involuntary manslaughter. What if you're found not guilty by
Speaker 1: reason of insanity, do you still get the inheritance? Then?
Speaker 1: It can get murky. And here's the other thing. The
Speaker 1: slayer's rule gets applied in civil court, not criminal court,
Speaker 1: and the burden of proof is totally different. In other words,
Speaker 1: you can be acquitted of murder in a criminal trial
Speaker 1: and still lose your inheritance in a lawsuit like this one.
Speaker 1: So in pursuit of Trevor's inheritance, Lawrence sat down for
Speaker 1: this deposition. It was not ruffled. He didn't appear to
Speaker 1: break a sweat, you know, And he answered questions for
Speaker 1: two days. And I think he truly believed that he
Speaker 1: was going to be out smarting everybody, that he was
Speaker 1: going to get away with it. There was one big
Speaker 1: problem for Lawrence, though. Prosecutors from the criminal case had
Speaker 1: decided to use his deposition as a kind of trojan horse.
Speaker 1: They were racing. They had to prove Lawrence Horn hired
Speaker 1: someone to murder his family for money. Before he could
Speaker 1: get his hands on the money, Glenn Cooper was representing
Speaker 1: a family. Glenn would call from time to time, what's
Speaker 1: going on? I said, I can't tell you a lot.
Speaker 1: We are where we are on this. But he said,
Speaker 1: but if if I chance during your deposition of him,
Speaker 1: you asked him about a calling card. It might be
Speaker 1: helpful to all of us, so he questioned, he had
Speaker 1: no idea what I was talking about, and go back
Speaker 1: to this calling card in some other name. So he
Speaker 1: asked that in the deposition for you essentially kind of yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I just want to say, there are so many important
Speaker 1: calls in this investigation, forty three to be exact, so
Speaker 1: it's okay if you lose tracks sometimes. Investigators spent months
Speaker 1: now combing through the phone records of Lawrence Horn and
Speaker 1: James Perry, and eventually they figured out that the two men,
Speaker 1: one living in l a and the other in Detroit,
Speaker 1: had been using the same calling card, registered under a
Speaker 1: fake name, for a full year before the murders. Just
Speaker 1: for the record, Lawrence claims he was using this card
Speaker 1: to call other women so his living girlfriend didn't find out.
Speaker 1: And even though they were both using the calling card,
Speaker 1: neither was calling each other's house. They used pay phones
Speaker 1: a lot so they wouldn't be caught talking to each other,
Speaker 1: and investigators had no way of knowing what was actually
Speaker 1: being said on these calls. We've still needed to somehow
Speaker 1: find out how in the world do we connect Lawrence
Speaker 1: Horn and James Perry. We've got phone records, you know,
Speaker 1: We've got okay Detroit, and we put up a surveillance.
Speaker 1: They started telling Perry, honestly, if there wasn't already so
Speaker 1: much to cover in the series, we could have done
Speaker 1: a whole episode on the surveillance alone. And we basically
Speaker 1: wound up setting wire taps up on James Perry's house.
Speaker 1: We had I guess four separate wire taps going. They
Speaker 1: keep on Perry for months, unable to catch him in
Speaker 1: conversation with Lawrence Horn. But then they noticed he's been
Speaker 1: hanging out with this one guy a lot, Thomas Turner.
Speaker 1: So we followed him and got his tag number and
Speaker 1: found that Thomas Turner. Who the heck is Thomas Turner, Well,
Speaker 1: he's Lawrence Horn's cousin. It wasn't until they got a
Speaker 1: warrant to tap Turner's phone when they realized just how
Speaker 1: Perry and Horn had been communicating. They later learned Turner
Speaker 1: also rented the cars Perry used to go to Maryland.
Speaker 1: There was a series of calls that were generated Horn
Speaker 1: to Turner just because trying to set up a call
Speaker 1: with Perry and vice versa. Perry would use turner to
Speaker 1: set up calls. Horn, so we're catching all this on
Speaker 1: wire interseps. The following has been edited for time and clarity. Yellow.
Speaker 1: Hey man, that's your couse. Hey, I've been trying to
Speaker 1: catch up to you. Uh, take a contact of all yeah,
Speaker 1: set it up to call so I know you know
Speaker 1: when to go. All right, okay, thank you, alright, Okay,
Speaker 1: I need to talk to you. That nobody still the
Speaker 1: same over at your older brothers, I think so it
Speaker 1: would it be possible for you to think collective? You
Speaker 1: call over there? You know what I'm saying, Just in case,
Speaker 1: uh we're not cool? Here? Can we look it up anytime? Later,
Speaker 1: investigators believed this older brother was actually James Perry. They
Speaker 1: were talking about money. Lawrence was keeping Perry posted on
Speaker 1: the progress of the estate litigation. Perry was demanding payment. Hello, yeah, Thomas,
Speaker 1: hold on the camp. Hell yeah, what's up? Yeah? Well,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to have a conversation with you, and
Speaker 1: I just want you know, if if you feel that, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, everything is cool on your end and you know, well,
Speaker 1: uh discussed too much, you know, Okay, all right, you
Speaker 1: know the problem I'm having. Yeah, So I just wanted
Speaker 1: to get into position where, you know, I felt that
Speaker 1: you were comfortable talking, you know, so that we could
Speaker 1: talk freely. I mentioned, you know, going over to uh,
Speaker 1: you know, your older brother. Yeah, because it's probably you know, clean,
Speaker 1: you know, there's no problem there. Yeah, about ten you know. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm telling I expect to come all right, all right, okay.
Speaker 1: Care They knew Turner was the broker. Prosecutor Bob Dean
Speaker 1: went out to Detroit to pull him in. Yeah, is
Speaker 1: the FBI office. We brought him to and sat down
Speaker 1: and had a heart to heart with him. He didn't
Speaker 1: want to say anything. He called up Lawrence Horn, and
Speaker 1: Lawrence Horne told him, I'm going to get you a lawyer.
Speaker 1: Don't say anything. Were you still I was with him?
Speaker 1: I was with him when he made the call. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was with him. He was with the police. He
Speaker 1: was the Montgomery County Police and the FBI, and he
Speaker 1: called Lawrence right in front of you. Yes. Does that
Speaker 1: say something? Yes, of course it does. That same day,
Speaker 1: wire taps caught this call between Lawrence and Turner's wife, Cynthia. Cynthia, Yes,
Speaker 1: Laurence again, did Thomas call you? Okay? Okay? Now from
Speaker 1: what he's telling me. It's like they're trying to force
Speaker 1: him into making some statements or something. Right, that's what
Speaker 1: he's trying to tell me. But hold on't I say,
Speaker 1: take your time and listen and then ask you the question.
Speaker 1: You know, Well, the point is is he does not
Speaker 1: have to see anything. Okay, this isn't the same quiet
Speaker 1: Lawrence Horn from the other recordings or even the deposition.
Speaker 1: He sounds rattled. They investigated everybody out here, and then
Speaker 1: they said they were going back to Detroit, and then
Speaker 1: Cynthia shares even worse news. They said they already been
Speaker 1: to James. That's James Perry. Yeah, so anyway, Uh, Lawrence's
Speaker 1: plot starting to unravel. So investigators had wire taps proving
Speaker 1: this web of communication, and still Lawrence denied it all
Speaker 1: in his deposition. Do you know how Mr Turner knows
Speaker 1: Mr Perry? And if Mr Turner and Mr Perry conspired
Speaker 1: to murder your former wife and your son and your
Speaker 1: son's nurse, they did so completely on their own, without
Speaker 1: any involvement of you by you as that correct, check
Speaker 1: the form with you answer. Yes, We'll be right back.
Speaker 1: If you want to understand just how much trouble this
Speaker 1: deposition would end up being for Lawrence. Just listen to
Speaker 1: this statement from prosecution during Lawrence's trial. Quote during that deposition,
Speaker 1: despite all these phone calls, in these contacts between the two,
Speaker 1: and despite what you're going to hear about Thomas Turner
Speaker 1: setting up the phone calls for them to continue talking,
Speaker 1: Lawrence Horne denies knowing James Perry over and over again.
Speaker 1: Not only denies knowing him, but says I never called him.
Speaker 1: I don't know what you're talking about. There are a
Speaker 1: few moments in this deposition that I had to listen
Speaker 1: to a couple of times. The following has been edited down,
Speaker 1: but I promise you this is real. When you were
Speaker 1: in the navy, there was apparently an incident where a
Speaker 1: sailor was lost at sea. If you understand the question,
Speaker 1: you can answer yes. What you repeat the question? You
Speaker 1: were in the navy, there was apparently an incident where
Speaker 1: a sailor was lost a seal on your ship you
Speaker 1: were falling any such incident, Oh, I didn't. During the
Speaker 1: period when you were in the navy, what ships were
Speaker 1: you shipped on? I served aboard the USS Lake Champlain CBS,
Speaker 1: and during that period of time. There was never anyone
Speaker 1: lost the seal on the way Champlain co action. He
Speaker 1: guess him first on understanding or whether there was ever
Speaker 1: anyone lost to see that he may or may not
Speaker 1: know about. But he doesn't know about it, obviously, you
Speaker 1: can't tell us about right, So amazing to his knowledge,
Speaker 1: because anyone ever lost to seeing like jam playing while
Speaker 1: you served, I'm not aware of any This part of
Speaker 1: the deposition jumps out because it seems so strange. Why
Speaker 1: would they ask about a man being thrown overboard decades before? Well,
Speaker 1: Tiffany has an answer. She said that Lawrence used to
Speaker 1: brag to her about killing a man at sea. It
Speaker 1: was one of the first red flags she told investigators
Speaker 1: after her family was murdered. I mean, we'll never know
Speaker 1: if this actually happened. And from what attorneys have told me,
Speaker 1: this was never investigated. He was never accused or prosecuted.
Speaker 1: But that's the rumor they're getting at in this deposition here.
Speaker 1: I really can never predict where this story will go.
Speaker 1: Like Tiffany once told me, this isn't one story, it's fifty.
Speaker 1: And the thing is, Lawrence didn't have to answer any
Speaker 1: of these questions again, here's Trish Weaver. He hadn't been
Speaker 1: indicted yet, nobody had been indicted, but he clearly had
Speaker 1: to know that he was under investigation, and so he
Speaker 1: could have come to that deposition and asserted his Fifth
Speaker 1: Amendment privilege and not answered any of the questions. Instead,
Speaker 1: he answered questions for two days about his motives, about
Speaker 1: his desire to get the money, about what he knew,
Speaker 1: about a variety of different things. Because in a Maryland
Speaker 1: civil case, if a person asserts their Fifth Amendment and
Speaker 1: refuses to answer questions, it doesn't look good. In the
Speaker 1: civil case, the fact finder could say, oh, okay, well
Speaker 1: you didn't answer that because the answer that would have
Speaker 1: been bad for you. And so, since the motive for
Speaker 1: the murders was to get Trevor's money, he apparently was
Speaker 1: not willing to risk lose see that money, and the
Speaker 1: lawyers knew it. But clearly his whole plan hinges on
Speaker 1: acting like he's completely ignorant of the money. Again, the
Speaker 1: following has been edited for time and clarity. That is,
Speaker 1: up until March three. I'm looking for your understanding of
Speaker 1: what would happen to the one point one million dollar
Speaker 1: future thing. Trever Doe I didn't spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time thinking about that. As I recall, I understood basically
Speaker 1: that if Trevor died after the settlement that million, I
Speaker 1: would inherit his estate equally, that include the one point
Speaker 1: one million dollar future plan. Do you understand, yes, any
Speaker 1: discussions of what would happen to Trevor's estate if million
Speaker 1: Trevor died? Did I have any discussions? Yes? No? Right? Uh?
Speaker 1: Have you up until March three? My understanding for your
Speaker 1: testimony is you've never discussed with anyone what happens to
Speaker 1: Trevor's estate if Millie and Trevor both that there are
Speaker 1: times when it seems like he's trying not to incriminate himself,
Speaker 1: and then there are times when he tells the truth.
Speaker 1: In the deposition, they asked him if he called Millie
Speaker 1: on March two, just hours before she was killed. He says, yes,
Speaker 1: that it was the last time he talked to her.
Speaker 1: I'm not certain. Was it half an hour? Was? No? No,
Speaker 1: it was it was. It was short, but it was nice.
Speaker 1: You've heard excerpts already where he talks about his relationship
Speaker 1: with Millie, but I'm going to let it play now.
Speaker 1: Describe for us. Now, your relationship with Millie from seven
Speaker 1: until her death? YEA, well, pretty much the same as
Speaker 1: it was as far as the roller coaster up and down, unpredictable,
Speaker 1: hot and cold. When you say it was hot and cold,
Speaker 1: and I assume when you say it was cold at
Speaker 1: times there was some kind of distance between you, or
Speaker 1: when you say it was hot at times from until
Speaker 1: her death, what do you mean? Uh, Milly was very moody.
Speaker 1: And it's like I would call her at times and
Speaker 1: she wouldn't speak to me. At other times she would,
Speaker 1: So it was it got to be how lucky I
Speaker 1: was as far as when I was able to you know,
Speaker 1: it's a contact her. And remember this moment at the
Speaker 1: time that you married Millie Murray. Did you love her?
Speaker 1: M hm No. So when Lawrence is giving this deposition,
Speaker 1: he knows Thomas Turner is talking, he knows James Perry's
Speaker 1: house has been searched, he knows the FBI is monitoring
Speaker 1: his phones, and still this is his answer to the
Speaker 1: question did you love her? It's chilling. It's almost like
Speaker 1: he couldn't help himself but to admit something so cold
Speaker 1: when he was under investigation for her murderer. Do you
Speaker 1: re in my ber the way that he talked about
Speaker 1: his relationship with Millie. Yeah, he struck me. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to try to play, you know, armchair psychologist,
Speaker 1: but I mean he struck me very much as a narcissist.
Speaker 1: I mean it seemed as if he was the center
Speaker 1: of his universe and everybody else was an orbit around that.
Speaker 1: On July, just a week or so after Lawrence gave
Speaker 1: this deposition, he was arrested by federal agents in Hollywood.
Speaker 1: Perry was taken into custody that same day by the
Speaker 1: FBI in Detroit. So the deposition had helped unravel their plan.
Speaker 1: So he was so confident that he wouldn't be indicted
Speaker 1: that he was willing to say things that could potentially
Speaker 1: perjur himself. He did perjur himself absolutely. The attorneys that
Speaker 1: represented him are very competent attorneys. So I have every
Speaker 1: reason to believe that he was fully advised about the
Speaker 1: risk that he was taking. I'm sure he really knowingly
Speaker 1: made that determination that he could kind of maneuver the
Speaker 1: whole thing and try to come out on top. We
Speaker 1: videotaped the deposition. It was two days and what we
Speaker 1: just took the video tapes over to the state's attorney's office.
Speaker 1: He lied about many things, and I think that was
Speaker 1: very instrumental, and that ultimately was what led to his indictment.
Speaker 1: Oh another thing, investigators had been trying to figure out
Speaker 1: how or how much or even if Lawrence had paid
Speaker 1: James Perry. As always, this case came back to money, money.
Speaker 1: Where did the money come from? Well, Dan New Perry
Speaker 1: used Western Union from when they searched his apartment, So
Speaker 1: we went through hundreds of transactions from Western Union. Of course,
Speaker 1: Lawrence's name was nowhere to be found, but there were
Speaker 1: several transaction from Los Angeles. In the five months leading
Speaker 1: up to the murders. James Perry and his girlfriend received
Speaker 1: money transfers and amounts totaling six thousand dollars, which is
Speaker 1: around the same amount of upfront payment. The Hitman book
Speaker 1: suggests in these payments from Los Angeles came from a
Speaker 1: man named George Shaw. And George Shaw whoever he was,
Speaker 1: and our theory was it was Laurence Horn. Of course.
Speaker 1: One of the addresses he used was the old address
Speaker 1: of Motown in Los Angeles. He used a phone number
Speaker 1: of Motown and that wasn't all. It was a feeling
Speaker 1: that I had that you know, there there had to
Speaker 1: be at the code to break. I can remember going
Speaker 1: over to the University of Maryland library one night, and
Speaker 1: I really don't know why I did this other than
Speaker 1: just out of curiosity, but I started looking for back
Speaker 1: copies of Los Angeles Times on micro fish and in
Speaker 1: the July eight edition, Dean found the obituary from a
Speaker 1: man named George Shaw. And on that same page there
Speaker 1: was a very large article about Mary Wells. Mary Wells
Speaker 1: was a famous Motown singer known for the song my
Speaker 1: Guy I was fell off my chair so oh my,
Speaker 1: that works. It's remarkable that Dean found this in His
Speaker 1: theory was that while Lawrence Horne was reading the obituary
Speaker 1: for an old Motown friend, he saw this name George
Speaker 1: Shaw and found his alias, then used former Motown contact
Speaker 1: information for this George Shaw. So even when the stakes
Speaker 1: were high, even when he was engineering a hit on
Speaker 1: his own family, Lawrence held onto that legacy, that reminder
Speaker 1: of his greatness. During one of our interviews, I asked
Speaker 1: Prosecutor Bob Dean to read some of his closing statements
Speaker 1: and who are we sentencing well, not the Lawrence Horn
Speaker 1: of the nineteen fifties or the nineteen sixties, who was
Speaker 1: a sound engineer for so many of those songs that
Speaker 1: so many of us like and snap our fingers too,
Speaker 1: too happy days. No, we're dealing with the Lawrence Horn
Speaker 1: of the late eighties and early nineties. We're dealing with
Speaker 1: someone totally different. Basically spent his time in crafting a
Speaker 1: coast to coast conspiracy of death. That's what he did.
Speaker 1: That's how this man decided to use his talents. We're
Speaker 1: sentencing a man who buried his past of the fifties
Speaker 1: and sixties and seventies in Detroit. He had a secret life,
Speaker 1: he had secret hopes, and in the nineties he developed
Speaker 1: a secret plan. Three years after Millie Hoorn, her son Trevor,
Speaker 1: and his nurse Janis Saunders were killed, James Perry was
Speaker 1: convicted and sentenced to death three times, which was later
Speaker 1: overturned in an appeal, and a new trial sentenced him
Speaker 1: to three life terms. Lawrence Horn was found guilty on
Speaker 1: three counts of first degree murder and one murder of
Speaker 1: conspiracy and sentenced to life in prison. The civil case
Speaker 1: was put on hold while the criminal case went forward.
Speaker 1: It was reopened after Lawrence was convicted. Part of the
Speaker 1: summary judgment was asking the court to determine that Lawrence Horn,
Speaker 1: you know, because of the Slayer's rule, could not share
Speaker 1: in the distribution of Trevor's estate. The court ruled, And
Speaker 1: so he was there and he heard it, and I
Speaker 1: think he knew that at that point the gig was up.
Speaker 1: It was over, you know, I mean, obviously the plan
Speaker 1: had failed. He was going to live the rest of
Speaker 1: his life behind bars. This actually isn't the last time
Speaker 1: you'll hear about the Horn family in this podcast. There's
Speaker 1: a lot more, including a battle with hit Man's publisher,
Speaker 1: Paladin Press, and the first amendment that went all the
Speaker 1: way up to the Supreme Court. But we're going to
Speaker 1: be back with you in two weeks when I'm going
Speaker 1: to first tell you the story behind Paladin, and I'll
Speaker 1: start unearthing the truth behind the book hit Man, including
Speaker 1: the other time I know someone used it. This book
Speaker 1: says Rex Ferrell is a professional hit man and he's
Speaker 1: going to give you all of his secrets. So was
Speaker 1: Rex hit Man. Now I don't think we'll ever know,
Speaker 1: but I'd say that there's good probability. Of course, if
Speaker 1: every department had a cold case squad, they could go
Speaker 1: back and look at the things in those books and
Speaker 1: then compare them with what they have. I think they
Speaker 1: may be able to find some things like that, but
Speaker 1: you know, that's that's the luxury most departments don't have. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Pitman is a production of I Heart Radio and Hit
Speaker 1: Home Media. It's produced and reported by me Jasmine Morris.
Speaker 1: Our supervising producer is Michelle Lance. Marc Latto is our
Speaker 1: story consultant. Executive producers are Main gesh Had Ticket Door
Speaker 1: and Me. Mixing by Michelle Lance and Jacobo Penzo are
Speaker 1: fact checkers are Austin Thompson and Natsumi Aji Saka. Special
Speaker 1: thanks to Andrew Goldberg, Lucas Riley, Gabe Bluisier in the
Speaker 1: Montgomery County States Attorney's Office as well as the Montgomery
Speaker 1: County Courthouse. Our theme song by Alice McCoy and additional
Speaker 1: music written and produced by the students at DIME, powered
Speaker 1: by the Detroit Institute of Music Education,