Speaker 1: Before we get started, I want to let you know
Speaker 1: that Hitman contains graphic scenes of violence. Listener, discretion is advised.
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you about this book I found.
Speaker 1: If you saw it on a shelf, you might think
Speaker 1: it was a comic book or a silly polp novel.
Speaker 1: The cover's purple, with a James Bond Dick Tracy looking
Speaker 1: guy on the front, wearing a bright yellow suit and
Speaker 1: a fedora. He's holding up a gun with a silencer attached,
Speaker 1: and behind him there's this red outline of a body.
Speaker 1: And on the back cover is a crew drawing of handcuffs,
Speaker 1: a bottle of poison, a knife, some red gloves, and
Speaker 1: that same gun. The book's title even sounds kind of ridiculous.
Speaker 1: It's called hit Man, a Technical Manual for Independent Contractors.
Speaker 1: It was published in nineteen three by a Colorado publisher
Speaker 1: called Paladin Press. Here's how the author, Rex Ferrell begins.
Speaker 1: A woman recently asked how I could, in good conscience
Speaker 1: write an instruction book on murder. Oh, and we got
Speaker 1: an actor to read his lines. How can you live
Speaker 1: with yourself if someone uses what you right to go
Speaker 1: out and take a human life? Wind Rex Ferrell has
Speaker 1: very specific tips for the aspiring contract killer. He writes,
Speaker 1: step by step, you will learn where to find employment,
Speaker 1: how much to charge, and what you can and cannot
Speaker 1: do with the money you earn. And beyond all his
Speaker 1: logistical secrets, because of this book is full of those,
Speaker 1: he takes it a step further. He walks you as
Speaker 1: if you're his apprentice through the mental preparation it takes
Speaker 1: for a person to commit murder, like how to handle
Speaker 1: the emotions. He says, you won't feel after your first job.
Speaker 1: You had wondered if you would feel compassion for the victim,
Speaker 1: im mediate guilt, or even experienced direct intervention by the
Speaker 1: hand of God, but you weren't even feeling sick and
Speaker 1: by the side of the body. It's hard to get
Speaker 1: your hands on an actual copy of hit Man, and
Speaker 1: it's been out of print since I first discovered it.
Speaker 1: When I was researching a story for another radio show.
Speaker 1: They wanted pitches about amateurs, stories of ineptitude and failure,
Speaker 1: but also people who had stumbled into success despite dubious qualifications.
Speaker 1: That was five years ago. I thought it would be
Speaker 1: this little eight minute peace, but it turned into this
Speaker 1: eight episode podcast on the back of the book, it
Speaker 1: says Ferrell is a hit man. He is the last
Speaker 1: recourse in these times when laws are so twisted that
Speaker 1: justice goes unserved. He is a man who controls his
Speaker 1: destiny through his private code of ethics, who feels no
Speaker 1: twinch of guilt at doing his job. He is a
Speaker 1: professional killer. Rex Ferrell talks a out about how to
Speaker 1: stay anonymous, and he recommends using a fake name, especially
Speaker 1: when running a car or checking into a hotel. It's
Speaker 1: obvious he did this when he wrote his book. The
Speaker 1: name Rex Ferrell is too perfect. Farrell literally means wild.
Speaker 1: He wants you to think he's dangerous. So of all
Speaker 1: the mysteries around this book, the biggest one is Ferrell's
Speaker 1: true identity. The publisher has always protected the author. Their
Speaker 1: real name can't be found in court documents, and it's
Speaker 1: never come out in public, which is fitting because in
Speaker 1: his book he promises that he'll always remain elusive, that
Speaker 1: he'll never be caught. If my advice and the proven
Speaker 1: methods in this book are followed, certainly no one will
Speaker 1: ever know. But I wanted to know who would write
Speaker 1: an instruction manual for murder? And why so? I initially
Speaker 1: set out to find this Rex Ferrell, but the truth
Speaker 1: behind this book was so much bigger. He followed it
Speaker 1: a step by step to come in and murder my family.
Speaker 1: Some of this you can figure it out without a book,
Speaker 1: so you couldn't. Some of it is bordering on any
Speaker 1: Do we really want to tell people this because it's
Speaker 1: kind of evil? You know? How do you go after
Speaker 1: a book? I don't care what it says. This ship
Speaker 1: cannot be protected by the First Amendment. Motile legacy is
Speaker 1: motile a legacy, and everyone who was there, whatever they did, good, bad,
Speaker 1: what they say and ugly, you know, it's all part
Speaker 1: of the legacy. I got woke up in the wee
Speaker 1: hours of the morning. There had been an explosion and
Speaker 1: they had located a dead body. He was obviously good
Speaker 1: at concealing his identity. He literally just kind of fell
Speaker 1: off the face of the earth. I'm Jasmine Morris from
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio and Hit Home Media. This is hit Man.
Speaker 1: I learned very quickly that no one wants to talk
Speaker 1: about this book, certainly not the publisher. Back in two
Speaker 1: thousand fifteen, I made a phone call to Paladin Press
Speaker 1: and I asked if I could speak with someone about
Speaker 1: hit Man. There was a long pause from the person
Speaker 1: on the other end, and the call lasted about ten seconds.
Speaker 1: I still haven't been able to get anyone from Paladin
Speaker 1: on the phone or to answer my emails. In later episodes,
Speaker 1: we're going to explore the whole bizarre story of Paladin,
Speaker 1: but for now, here's what you need to know. The
Speaker 1: publisher began in Colorado in nineteen seventy, founded by two
Speaker 1: Vietnam veterans named Paidar Lund and Robert Cape Brown. In
Speaker 1: earlier photos, they're often posing with guns, wearing military fatigues
Speaker 1: bandanas across their foreheads. Lande looks just like Martin Sheen
Speaker 1: from Apocalypse Now. At one point, the company website said
Speaker 1: they named their press Paladin after the knights who served
Speaker 1: in Charlemagne's court in eighth century France, knights who were
Speaker 1: quote dispatched by the king to redress wrongs in the land.
Speaker 1: Brown would eventually start the Mercenary magazine Soldier of Fortune,
Speaker 1: while Lund soldiered on at Paladin, publishing books with titles
Speaker 1: like be Your Own Undertaker, how to Dispose of a
Speaker 1: dead Body, and Sneak It through Smuggling made easier in
Speaker 1: the eighties, they got into the video business, putting out
Speaker 1: instructional tapes like the lock Picking Guide b An E
Speaker 1: A t Z. How to get in anywhere anytime, getting
Speaker 1: into everything from padlocks to bank a vaults. You're going
Speaker 1: to see a steal of Mercedes, Corvette Ferrari, we are
Speaker 1: going to blow up a safe and was burning bars.
Speaker 1: We're gonna use everything can be done to get in someplace.
Speaker 1: As the company website said, quote Paladin, readers seek knowledge
Speaker 1: and information that some people think should remain secret or unpublished.
Speaker 1: Remember when they started, it was long before the internet.
Speaker 1: Lund was a First Amendment fundamentalist. He wanted to set
Speaker 1: this information free. There was just nothing that these guys
Speaker 1: one cell. That's Attorney Howard Siegel. I can hear Howard
Speaker 1: if he could be a little louder, Jasmine, you were
Speaker 1: absolutely the first person in the history of Western civilization
Speaker 1: who has ever asked me to be louder. My wife
Speaker 1: would be astounded that somebody asked me to be a louder. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Goad Howard has been an attorney for forty five years,
Speaker 1: often taking on cases no one else will. He's bombastic
Speaker 1: and unfiltered and not afraid to make his opinions known,
Speaker 1: which made him a worthy opponent of paid our loans,
Speaker 1: But we'll get into that later. I remember one description
Speaker 1: of how to build a baby bottle bomb in one
Speaker 1: of his books. That was a bomb that was literally
Speaker 1: in a baby bottle, and you would wield the baby
Speaker 1: into a crowded marketplace. That's how you would kill innocent people.
Speaker 1: And didn't bother Lund in the slightest. I mean, here's
Speaker 1: Lund himself back in the nineties being interviewed by Mike
Speaker 1: Wallace on sixty minutes. Terrorists would certainly be interested in
Speaker 1: what you publish. They might be absolutely and this doesn't
Speaker 1: worry the fact that, no, it does not. And later,
Speaker 1: when asked about a book tied to the Oklahoma City bombing,
Speaker 1: the domestic terrorist attack that killed one d sixty eight people,
Speaker 1: Lunda says this, I feel no responsibility. I have no
Speaker 1: ethical responsibility for the misuse of information. That's what this
Speaker 1: whole issue is about, the misuse, the illegal use of information.
Speaker 1: Lund died in two thousand seventeen and Paladin shut down
Speaker 1: shortly afterward. But I did speak with Tom Kelly, the
Speaker 1: press lawyer who defended Paladin in a landmark first Amendment
Speaker 1: case that we're going to talk a whole lot about.
Speaker 1: Not surprisingly, his take on Paladin's catalog was a little
Speaker 1: different than Howard's. Paladin has a niche market, a very
Speaker 1: eclectic mixture of non fiction. They focus on libertarian values,
Speaker 1: self help strategies, survivalism, knowledge of weapons and explosives, but
Speaker 1: they also include esoteric topics like quite a range of
Speaker 1: odd hobbies, or the spiritual life of the Lakota Sue
Speaker 1: Indians and that sort of thing. One of the best
Speaker 1: selling series of Paladin was the Revenge series, including Screw
Speaker 1: onto Others, revenge tactics for all occasions. I've also seen
Speaker 1: Paladin be described as the most dangerous publisher in America
Speaker 1: or something like that. Well, I you know, I think
Speaker 1: that's preposterous. The books published are very unlikely to be
Speaker 1: the cause of criminal conduct, murder, mayhem, what have you.
Speaker 1: This conversation is so relevant right now. What do we
Speaker 1: do with this kind of speech and information? Every few days,
Speaker 1: it seems there's another mass shooting tied to some kind
Speaker 1: of radicalized viral online hate. So we have to ask,
Speaker 1: can horrendous ideas cause horrendous acts of violence? And are
Speaker 1: the platforms that perpetuate those ideas responsible. Paladin's publisher paid
Speaker 1: our Land once said, I've never seen a man killed
Speaker 1: by a book which brings us to murders of Millie
Speaker 1: and Trevor Horn and Janice Saunders. We're like, what a
Speaker 1: book that's published? It tells you how to kill? And
Speaker 1: really we could not believe this, something like this was published.
Speaker 1: We had three people who were dead, had been murdered,
Speaker 1: and this book was used. It made me angry. I
Speaker 1: was already angry when I understood the book, and I
Speaker 1: became even more angry. That's Maryland Farmer. She's telling me
Speaker 1: about her sister, Millie Horne, a forty three year old
Speaker 1: single mom with three kids, an older daughter, Tiffany, and
Speaker 1: twins Tammielle and Trevor. We all remember her, her beautiful smile,
Speaker 1: her red lips she loved red lipstick, and her infectious
Speaker 1: laughter and just happy, loving life. We used to teaser
Speaker 1: because Millie had blonde hair, and she had green eyes,
Speaker 1: and she was fair skinned, and she had a presence
Speaker 1: about her. That presence it comes through in stories and
Speaker 1: photographs of Millie. I've heard people use words like magnetic
Speaker 1: when describing her. I've also heard determined, prideful, fearless, and regal.
Speaker 1: She's also been described as a really good mom. Here's
Speaker 1: her daughter, Tiffany. I can honestly say she invested her
Speaker 1: heart and soul in raising me. She also was that
Speaker 1: cool mom, you know, and she definitely was more carefree.
Speaker 1: Like she took me to see Flash Name. It's like
Speaker 1: I will never forget that, Like what mother takes their
Speaker 1: daughter to see a movie about strippers? It was like
Speaker 1: eight years old. She didn't know was that kind of
Speaker 1: dancy mill. He was fiercely protective of her children, which
Speaker 1: became especially clear to everyone when she gave birth to
Speaker 1: her twins. They were born three months premature. Tammiel had
Speaker 1: no major health complications, but Trevor's lungs were underdeveloped and
Speaker 1: he was in critical condition when he finally came home
Speaker 1: from the hospital. He had a tracheostomy tube in his
Speaker 1: throat and he was hooked up to an abneum monitor,
Speaker 1: which would sound an alarm if he stopped breathing. He
Speaker 1: required twenty four hour nursing care. Trevor was profoundly disabled.
Speaker 1: That's Howard Siegel again. He was what many people would
Speaker 1: consider to be the ultimate burden, and these people treated
Speaker 1: him like he was the ultimate gift. He was our
Speaker 1: miracle child. I would have a bad day at work
Speaker 1: and I would come in and walk in the room
Speaker 1: and who's they're chuckling away at me. Tiffany was nine
Speaker 1: when the twins were born, and she remembers that close bond.
Speaker 1: Million Trevor shared, My mom was his everything, like a
Speaker 1: mother's son love you could not imagine. And it was
Speaker 1: almost like she was the love of his life. And
Speaker 1: I think my mom had been looking for that connection
Speaker 1: for a long time. Say, Fifine, I have Tammy you.
Speaker 1: What do you do in Trevor? Wait, this is footage
Speaker 1: from a home video Maryland shared with me. That's her
Speaker 1: voice you're hearing. Trevor, now four years old, is laying
Speaker 1: on a Smurf's blanket on the floor in his bedroom,
Speaker 1: which was the heart of Milly's house. They actually called
Speaker 1: it the family room. His cousins and siblings are playing
Speaker 1: with him, tickling him. His mouth is wide open with
Speaker 1: the biggest smile. He just radiates joy. You can see
Speaker 1: it on everyone's faces. And then his mother, Millie, gets
Speaker 1: down on the floor with him. What are you talking about, Trevor? STU.
Speaker 1: Look at recommend Mama, where are you going? Oh it's
Speaker 1: Trevor turned over? Look at your laving? Just like every
Speaker 1: other night. Around seven seven pm on March second, Trevor
Speaker 1: gets a bath and is rocked to sleep in a
Speaker 1: rocking chair in his room. If it wasn't Milly doing this,
Speaker 1: it would be one of the nurses she recruited to
Speaker 1: help care for Trevor. Janis Saunders, arrives around eight pm
Speaker 1: to work the night shift. Janie isn't supposed to be
Speaker 1: there that night, but she agreed to fill in for
Speaker 1: another nurse who couldn't make it. As was routine, she
Speaker 1: flashes her headlights, letting the day nurse know she's in
Speaker 1: the driveway. The garage door opens for her. She pulls
Speaker 1: in and closes the garage door behind her. The nurse,
Speaker 1: being relieved, debriefs Janice, telling her Trevor was doing very
Speaker 1: well clinically. She says he was enjoyable and very happy
Speaker 1: that they'd had a very pleasant a. Milliehorn, a flight
Speaker 1: attendant with American Airlines, is scheduled to fly out around
Speaker 1: eight am. Tammiell's sleeping over at her aunt's. Janice settles
Speaker 1: in for the night. Just before midnight, a man parks
Speaker 1: his rental car and silver Spring, Maryland. He carries a
Speaker 1: hand drawn map as he walks to Millie's big brick
Speaker 1: house nearby. This is the ax on his map. Millie
Speaker 1: is asleep upstairs. Trevor is asleep in his room. Jannis
Speaker 1: sits by his side, cross stitching and watching over the boy.
Speaker 1: At around two am, she logs his vitals continued to
Speaker 1: sleep quietly, respiratory status, stable, lungs clear, diaper dry. Her
Speaker 1: notes show that she started to write more and then.
Speaker 1: No one knows exactly what happened next, but here's what
Speaker 1: investigators piece together. The man approaches the back of the
Speaker 1: house carrying an a R seven rifle, low it with
Speaker 1: twenty two caliber ammunition and a homemade silencer affixed the barrel.
Speaker 1: He prizes open a basement window or possibly the sliding
Speaker 1: back door. He walks through the first floor of the
Speaker 1: house towards Trevor's bedroom, finds Janice Saunders and shoots her
Speaker 1: through the eye. He then approaches Trevor's crib and smothers
Speaker 1: the boy. Trevor stops breathing, which sets off the piercing
Speaker 1: alarm of zapnea monitor, just as she had done many
Speaker 1: times in the past. Millie hears the alarm and heads
Speaker 1: downstairs to check on Trevor. That's when she comes face
Speaker 1: to face with a man at the foot of the stairs.
Speaker 1: He shoots her in the head three times, again through
Speaker 1: the eye. Before the man leaves, he tosses furniture and
Speaker 1: takes Millie's credit cards. He takes his gun, disassembles it,
Speaker 1: and runs a rattail file down the inside of his
Speaker 1: A R seven. He grabs Millie's keys, and he takes
Speaker 1: off in her van, tossing her credit cards and the
Speaker 1: gun parts into the brush along the highway. He abandons
Speaker 1: her van and he gets back into his rental car,
Speaker 1: making one last stop to a pay phone at a
Speaker 1: Denny's nearby. All Right, it's cryptic, but investigators believe this
Speaker 1: was a hitman calling his employer to report he had
Speaker 1: completed his job. We'll be right back after a quick break.
Speaker 1: When I first reached out to Tiffany Horn, it's been
Speaker 1: twenty five years since her family was completely torn apart.
Speaker 1: After several years or decades, the family leaves that deal
Speaker 1: with this type of horrendous trauma are constantly dealing with
Speaker 1: the fallout. It never goes away, and it's a lonely
Speaker 1: existence sometimes to be part of that, because you become
Speaker 1: almost like a pariah, and it's too painful for people
Speaker 1: to want to deal with. I keep coming back to
Speaker 1: this moment in the home video that Marilynn shared with me,
Speaker 1: when Tiffany turns the camera on her mom, Mom, I
Speaker 1: go to church today. What did you do that? I
Speaker 1: tried to listen to? What else did you do? Tiffany
Speaker 1: was just a teenager when she lost her mom. She's
Speaker 1: now outlived Milly by a year. She's a forty four
Speaker 1: year old single mother of two. She travels as much
Speaker 1: as she can. She loves music and God, and she's tough.
Speaker 1: By that, I mean she doesn't let anyone walk all
Speaker 1: over her. She'll put you in your place. She first
Speaker 1: answered my call in March of two thousand eighteen. We
Speaker 1: had many more phone calls before she agreed to meet
Speaker 1: with me, and even then she was reluctant. She still is.
Speaker 1: She doesn't trust easily for good reason. Why are you
Speaker 1: sitting here with me today? I feel it's important to
Speaker 1: tell some details and some parts of my story that
Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever really talked about before, even
Speaker 1: just talking to you today. I can't have these conversations
Speaker 1: really with anyone now. My kids have grown up and
Speaker 1: they're moving on to live their adult lives, and I
Speaker 1: guess I'm left now with, oh, wow, there's all these
Speaker 1: things I'm still having to kind of sort through about
Speaker 1: my dad, about my mom, about my family. The morning
Speaker 1: of March three, Tiffany got a phone call to her
Speaker 1: dorm room at Howard University in Washington, d C. I'll
Speaker 1: never forget. They called me from the lobby and they
Speaker 1: said that the police were there for me, and my
Speaker 1: heart stopped. They just said, can you come with us?
Speaker 1: So that was like a minute tribe, and I just
Speaker 1: remember being back at the cruiser just crying and crying
Speaker 1: and crying because I didn't know what had happened, but
Speaker 1: I knew it must be something awful. So I had
Speaker 1: almost a whole hour to go through all these different scenarios,
Speaker 1: and I just remember thinking immediately maybe my mom's plane
Speaker 1: had crashed or something like. I used to have those
Speaker 1: fears as a child, so that was the first thing
Speaker 1: that came to my mind. I'm at that point inconsolable,
Speaker 1: so I run into the house and I just collapsed
Speaker 1: into my Auntie Lane's arms, screaming and crying. And that's
Speaker 1: when my grandmother was in the background, wailing that he
Speaker 1: killed my daughter, this primal whale of pain. And then
Speaker 1: that's when my my aunt told me that my mother,
Speaker 1: my brother, and his nurse Janis had been murdered. Tiffany's aunt,
Speaker 1: Millie sister, Vivian Elaine Rice lived next door to Millie.
Speaker 1: She was the first one to discover the scene around
Speaker 1: seven fifteen am. At first, everyone pointed their fingers and
Speaker 1: Millie's ex husband and father her three children, Lawrence Horn,
Speaker 1: but he was three thousand miles away at the time,
Speaker 1: and as we'll learn, he had an airtight alibi. I
Speaker 1: was responsible for the investigation and prosecution of what we
Speaker 1: call the triple murder for hire of Trevor and Mildred
Speaker 1: and Janice Saunders. Robert Dean is a career prosecutor based
Speaker 1: in Montgomery County, Maryland. After I reached out, he responded immediately.
Speaker 1: He was working in me and mar at the time
Speaker 1: when we met up just days after he returned to
Speaker 1: the States. Police didn't always ask me to come out
Speaker 1: to the crime scene, but they thought this was the
Speaker 1: type of case where it was appropriate, so I did.
Speaker 1: It was a very somber and and and solemn site.
Speaker 1: There was the body of Mildred Horn at the bottom
Speaker 1: of the stairs. There was the body of a child
Speaker 1: with clearly life support type of apparatus oxygen tanks and
Speaker 1: and and wires and so forth. By his side was
Speaker 1: Jonnas Saunders, one of his care nurses. Bob Dean still
Speaker 1: calls this the biggest case he's ever had. It was
Speaker 1: one of the most exhaustive investigations in Montgomery County history.
Speaker 1: Whoever had committed this crime had managed to leave no
Speaker 1: fingerprints behind. They didn't have much to go on, so
Speaker 1: the police set off on foot, canvassing the area for clues,
Speaker 1: and they told us they had found someone from Detroit
Speaker 1: who was signed into a hotel, stayed like six hours,
Speaker 1: and then left. This man from Detroit had checked into
Speaker 1: a nearby days in around midnight and had checked out
Speaker 1: by six am the morning of the murders. There could
Speaker 1: have been plenty of innocent explanations, but it still seemed weird.
Speaker 1: This was clearly an interstate matter, and by this time
Speaker 1: we had asked the FBI for assistance, and investigators from
Speaker 1: the Detroit FBI office decided to pay the man a visitance. Units.
Speaker 1: We should be on that house in a few minutes.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have the handheld with us. This is the
Speaker 1: actual tape from that day. They're outside the man's small
Speaker 1: brick house in East Detroit. Hey, so, Bob case FBI, Well,
Speaker 1: see how we covered as quickly here I got from
Speaker 1: a Baltimore office. Okay, what they're looking at is, um
Speaker 1: they checked some hotels I guess on days in Gethersburg area, Rockville, Maryland,
Speaker 1: and they had information that you stayed there. I know
Speaker 1: it's going back a long time, but March second third
Speaker 1: of this year. Okay, Well, first of all March. Okay.
Speaker 1: First of all, they want to confirm there was in
Speaker 1: fact you or somebody still your I D did you
Speaker 1: lose your ID or something like that. Uh No, I
Speaker 1: was there in that area, okay, And so I can
Speaker 1: can you tell us why you were there? Well? Well,
Speaker 1: can I ask you why you're asking this question? And
Speaker 1: eventually he answers the FBI agents your own business business,
Speaker 1: church related business. The man being questioned is James Edward Perry.
Speaker 1: He was around forty five years old. At the time.
Speaker 1: He had a criminal record. He'd been in prison for
Speaker 1: armed robbery, but he'd served his time and now worked
Speaker 1: for himself as a radio minister and spiritual advisor. I
Speaker 1: traveled across this country. I've got probably maybe four or
Speaker 1: five thousand people that I counsel and in minister too.
Speaker 1: We are into basically now trying to help people, uh,
Speaker 1: what the problems that they possibly have. I found the
Speaker 1: surveillance photo of him. He's wearing a trench coat in
Speaker 1: a prayer cap. He's got aviator sunglasses hanging around his neck.
Speaker 1: He's very stylish. Perry called himself a case buster. He
Speaker 1: helped with things like choosing lottery numbers and counseling people
Speaker 1: on their marriages. There are people that because those certain
Speaker 1: things happening in their lives there they have witchcraft. They
Speaker 1: held painting that body. Uh. We pray for him and
Speaker 1: we are tempted to give them a positive attitude with
Speaker 1: My belief is that whatever it is, if you think
Speaker 1: that you're healthy, when you'll be healthy, it doesn't make
Speaker 1: no difference what you have, you have cancer or what
Speaker 1: have you that can be absolved. I'm going to take
Speaker 1: you through all the twists and turns of this investigation,
Speaker 1: But just know that eventually investigators executed a search warrant
Speaker 1: on Perry's house, and he had kind of a storefront.
Speaker 1: I don't want to call it a church, but I
Speaker 1: guess that's what we will call it, and we'll call
Speaker 1: it a church. Handle a little calling card, and there
Speaker 1: was a soldier of Fortune magazine, and then there was
Speaker 1: a catalog for Paler and Press. Sure enough we learned
Speaker 1: that James Perry had in fact ordered these two books,
Speaker 1: how to Be a Hitman by Rex Ferrell, and this
Speaker 1: book on how to make disposable silencers. We ordered, of
Speaker 1: course these books as well. Do you remember the first
Speaker 1: time you saw that book? Yeah, I know I. I
Speaker 1: looked at it and I couldn't believe it. I don't
Speaker 1: want to say I was appalled. For a minute. I
Speaker 1: thought it was a joke. It's kind of just a
Speaker 1: gag gift. But you've not got the thinking that maybe,
Speaker 1: you know, some people take it seriously, and Perry was
Speaker 1: interested in it. Investigators found striking similarities between the tips
Speaker 1: found in hit Man and the murders of Millie, Trevor
Speaker 1: and Janice. The first item on Farrell's basic equipment checklist
Speaker 1: an a R seven rifle, which investigators believe was used
Speaker 1: in these murders. Shoot at close range. Quote aim for
Speaker 1: the head, preferably the eye sockets. If you are a
Speaker 1: sharp shooter. Establish a ace at a motel in close
Speaker 1: proximity to the job site before committing the murders. Farrell says,
Speaker 1: pay cash, which James Perry did, and to check in
Speaker 1: using a fictitious name. But this day's in had a
Speaker 1: rule if paying with cash, he had to show your
Speaker 1: I D. I guess the flaw is that he used
Speaker 1: his correct identification. If he hadn't done that, do you
Speaker 1: think you would have found him? I don't know. If
Speaker 1: he used a phony name and had phony idea, I
Speaker 1: don't know that we would have. One of the attorneys
Speaker 1: I spoke with early on in this story said he
Speaker 1: didn't want hit Man in his house. He compared it
Speaker 1: to a loaded pistol or a vial of poison. I
Speaker 1: know what he means. Hit Man sitting next to me
Speaker 1: right now, and it does have a certain cloud around it.
Speaker 1: I generally keep it in one place, and I don't
Speaker 1: like it to touch other things in my office, almost
Speaker 1: like it's some kind of contaminant. This book her lot
Speaker 1: of people, we don't even really know how many. And
Speaker 1: if this is a story about accountability, about who is
Speaker 1: truly responsible when bad things happen, about who carries the
Speaker 1: burden of remorse, there's still someone who's never spoken about
Speaker 1: their role in all of it. One day, buried in
Speaker 1: something like five pages of court documents that a lawyer
Speaker 1: emailed me, I finally came across some correspondence between Paladin
Speaker 1: and Professional Killer. Rex Ferrell, the editorial director of Paladin,
Speaker 1: was writing, with good news enclosed, you will find two
Speaker 1: copies of the contract for hit Man, a technical manual
Speaker 1: for independent contractors. Signed two copies with a witness, and
Speaker 1: returned both to us. I was about to get my
Speaker 1: first glimpse of the person behind the book. Here's what
Speaker 1: he wrote back to Paladin. My main concern in offering
Speaker 1: this type of material for publication is the possibility of
Speaker 1: litigation from people who might misuse the materials in my books.
Speaker 1: So the real Rex Ferrell might have had a conscience.
Speaker 1: After all, it's easy to speculate what Ferrell's intentions were
Speaker 1: in writing hit Man. To some, it's not a question.
Speaker 1: I mean he wrote a murder manual to others. It
Speaker 1: reads his entertainment or a joke, a joke that James
Speaker 1: Perry might have used to murder three people. But after
Speaker 1: reading through this exchange, at least one thing becomes clear
Speaker 1: about Ferrell Again, he writes, by the way, an answer
Speaker 1: to your question and that of Mr Land. I get
Speaker 1: my materials from books, television, movies, newspapers, police officers, my
Speaker 1: karate instructor, and a good friend who is an attorney. No,
Speaker 1: I am not a hit man. I don't even own
Speaker 1: a gun, but don't tell anybody. Yeah, next on hit Man,
Speaker 1: my dad stole everything. I knew in my heart of
Speaker 1: hearts that he was involved. He destroyed my life like
Speaker 1: my family was gone. It's never been the same for me.
Speaker 1: We all knew, did it? So we knew it was
Speaker 1: Lawrence Horn. I mean, I knew who else who would
Speaker 1: have benefited from Trevor Due Who would walk in the
Speaker 1: house and kill an innocent child. At the time that
Speaker 1: you married Billie Murray, did you love her? H No.
Speaker 1: Hit Man is a production of My Heart Radio and
Speaker 1: Hit Home Media. It's produced and reported by me Jasmine Morris,
Speaker 1: our supervising producer is Michelle Lance. Mark Luto is our
Speaker 1: story consultant. Executive producers are Mangesh Hattikador and Me. Mixing
Speaker 1: by Josh Roguson and Jacopo Penzo. Our fact checker is
Speaker 1: Austin Thompson. Our theme song is written and produced by DIME,
Speaker 1: powered by the Detroit Institute of Music Education. In special
Speaker 1: thanks to Andrew Goldberg, Tor Piquette, Michael Garoclo, Nikki Etre,
Speaker 1: Tristan McNeil, and Taylor Chocoin