Speaker 1: Who wrote the book head Man. I'm not at liberty
Speaker 1: to disclose the author's name. That's Peter Lund, founder of
Speaker 1: Paladin Press and publisher of Hitman, speaking with Mike Wallace
Speaker 1: on sixty minutes back. Why not because the author asked
Speaker 1: that we protect her privacy. It is a woman. It
Speaker 1: is a woman. One afternoon this past February, I stepped
Speaker 1: away from my desk for just a few minutes. By then,
Speaker 1: I'd written who I believed to be Rex Ferrell. I'd
Speaker 1: emailed multiple times to several different email addresses, called a bunch,
Speaker 1: tried a few family members, mailed certified letters. I even
Speaker 1: wrote her on Pinterest, on Instagram and Facebook. But no
Speaker 1: matter what I did, I didn't hear back. I mean,
Speaker 1: I was only gone for a moment. It was nothing,
Speaker 1: no time at all. But when I returned there was
Speaker 1: a missed call from one of the numbers I tried,
Speaker 1: and there was a voicemail, a long one. I was excited,
Speaker 1: kind of felt like I was gonna puke. I wasn't
Speaker 1: entirely sure what I was gonna say, but I hope
Speaker 1: to have a chance to tell her what kind of
Speaker 1: journalists I am that I'm not looking for some kind
Speaker 1: of gotcha moment that I had no interest in doxing
Speaker 1: her or pursuing some kind of moral reckoning. I just
Speaker 1: want to know what happened, what was her story? And
Speaker 1: then I held the phone up to my ear and
Speaker 1: pressed play. Ye, nothing, just some background noises. I listened
Speaker 1: to it three times, hoping I had missed her message,
Speaker 1: like maybe it was just at the very end or
Speaker 1: really quiet. No, this was clearly a missdial. Now when
Speaker 1: I try that number, it goes straight to voicemail. I
Speaker 1: hope she's listening to this right now. It eventually calls
Speaker 1: me again. She's got my number from my Heart radio
Speaker 1: and hit Home Media. I'm Jasmine Morris. This is Hitman.
Speaker 1: On the very last page of Hitman, Reck Ferrell boasts someday,
Speaker 1: when you've done and seen it all, when there doesn't
Speaker 1: seem to be any challenge left or any new frontier
Speaker 1: left to conquer, you might just feel cocky enough to
Speaker 1: write a book about it. You might just feel cocky
Speaker 1: enough to write a book about it. It's so obvious,
Speaker 1: especially now that Rex Ferrell, this macho rogue Maverick, the
Speaker 1: King of the Wild Beasts, was always just to put
Speaker 1: on a persona. When I got ahold of the print
Speaker 1: copy and thumbed through its pages, I was struck by
Speaker 1: some of the photographs about halfway through, where Rex Ferrell
Speaker 1: shows how to make a homemade silencer. These photos are
Speaker 1: in black and white. They're super grainy and kind of
Speaker 1: hard to see any real detail. But the person in
Speaker 1: these photographs demonstrating how to make these d i y weapons.
Speaker 1: They're only shown from the neck down, but as I
Speaker 1: looked closely, it looks like they're wearing a woman's engagement ring.
Speaker 1: And in the Homework and Surveillance chapter, one of the
Speaker 1: centerpieces of this book is a ten page questionnaire which
Speaker 1: the hitman is supposed to submit to the employer and
Speaker 1: seeks detailed information on the source, background, habits, whether he
Speaker 1: has guns in the house, burglar alarms, whether he knows
Speaker 1: martial arts, schematic of surrounding houses and neighbors Tom Kelly,
Speaker 1: Paladin's press lawyer. It says directions, please print plainly, answer
Speaker 1: all questions as completely as possible. Use additional sheets of necessary,
Speaker 1: supply all information available, even if not requested. No detail
Speaker 1: is too small. This sounds a little bit more like
Speaker 1: a college application than Hitman making a deal with an
Speaker 1: employer really bordering on the absurd. There are hands drawn
Speaker 1: diagrams in maps and a sample information sheet. These are
Speaker 1: all drawn and written in a sort of flowery cursive.
Speaker 1: So I knew it was all fake, but that didn't
Speaker 1: make my job any easier. How do you find someone
Speaker 1: who wrote under a pen name, someone who might not
Speaker 1: want to be found? I scoured message boards, Amazon reviews,
Speaker 1: comments sections, hoping for some kind of bread crumb that
Speaker 1: would lead me to this person. Nothing. I asked the
Speaker 1: same question over and over. Yeah, I was gonna ask
Speaker 1: you about this author? What do you know about the
Speaker 1: anonymous office you just mentioned the What did you know
Speaker 1: about the author of the book? So? Who was the
Speaker 1: actual author? Do you ever know anything about the author
Speaker 1: of the book. My good friend, investigative journalist Andrew Goldberg,
Speaker 1: offered his help. He tracked down some court documents and
Speaker 1: dockets and handed me a stack of paper with every
Speaker 1: woman's name circled. I asked Howard Siegel why they never
Speaker 1: looked into the author? Why didn't her name come out
Speaker 1: in the lawsuit? He said, quote, we simply didn't need her.
Speaker 1: There was no possible upside. What was she going to
Speaker 1: say that she was trying to help would be murderers,
Speaker 1: of course not she was going to tow the party
Speaker 1: line and say she was just kidding or providing information.
Speaker 1: Never bring a witness in who can't add to your case.
Speaker 1: When you have them, buy the balls, you don't let
Speaker 1: go to see if you can get a better grip.
Speaker 1: The question is why didn't they depose or subpoena her,
Speaker 1: meaning Paladin Press. So I asked Paladin's lawyer. He confirmed
Speaker 1: what Lund had said on sixty minutes. The author chose
Speaker 1: to be anonymous, a right protected by the First Amendment.
Speaker 1: In Paladin agreed. Paladin deemed itself obliged to keep that
Speaker 1: implied pledge of confidentiality, just as you would a news
Speaker 1: source grasping for leeds. I remember these two amazing private
Speaker 1: detectives I'd interviewed years prior for another radio piece, legit
Speaker 1: sleuths who were also married to each other, Um Collin Collins,
Speaker 1: I own North Dinder Investigations. My favorite operative's Sean Kaufman.
Speaker 1: My name is Kaufman, and I'm a licensed private investigator
Speaker 1: in the state of Colorado, and that opens the gate
Speaker 1: to many mysteries. Colleen later named a character in one
Speaker 1: of her romance novels After Me. That's another story. I
Speaker 1: see Colleen Man tell you what, don't get on her
Speaker 1: bad side, dude, don't make her look for you because
Speaker 1: palso wham bam, she will find you, and then she'll
Speaker 1: send me out to serve you. I did find someone
Speaker 1: a c I A one what. So when I got
Speaker 1: this person on the phone, the first thing I said
Speaker 1: was how did you find me? Wow? What did you say?
Speaker 1: I said, Well, I just want you to know it
Speaker 1: wasn't easy. She said, that's because I'm in the CIA,
Speaker 1: So finding people is what Colleen and Shawn do, which
Speaker 1: is why. Back in two thousand fifteen, I emailed Colleen
Speaker 1: with everything I knew about Rex Ferrell and told her
Speaker 1: the entire story about this Hitman book, The Trible Murder
Speaker 1: Paladin Press. To my surprise, she'd actually visited Paladin. You're ago.
Speaker 1: I wrote a fiction novel which was really really bad,
Speaker 1: because everybody's first books usually are really bad, and they
Speaker 1: had a serial killer in it and guns and all
Speaker 1: kinds of things. So I thought, gosh, there's that soldier
Speaker 1: of Fortune magazine here in town. And yet palat impressed
Speaker 1: or something I should call them, you know, because I
Speaker 1: want to talk about guns and killings and stuff. She said,
Speaker 1: it was a rather memorable experience. I mean, of course
Speaker 1: it was. But was stunning to me was when I
Speaker 1: got there there was all this security. I remember thinking, well,
Speaker 1: this is really weird, you know, and there was a
Speaker 1: camera and bars and this is fine. I was in
Speaker 1: this portal and the door was locked, and this man's
Speaker 1: voice said, is that you calling for the appointment? And
Speaker 1: I said yes, I remember. He took me back to
Speaker 1: a room and there was the desk in the place
Speaker 1: was actually pretty bare. Its step for dozens and dozens
Speaker 1: of boxes. She said she couldn't remember if it was
Speaker 1: actually soldier of Fortune or paladin, but she told me
Speaker 1: whoever she talked to pulled a gun out of his desk.
Speaker 1: Sounds familiar, and so I interviewed him about guns. Well,
Speaker 1: I didn't have a lot of friends. I was pretty
Speaker 1: new and Boulder, so nobody told me that they were strange,
Speaker 1: you know. And I really the first thing I do
Speaker 1: when I go to a new town find find me
Speaker 1: the right wing. Hey, everybody here know where I gets
Speaker 1: a good hollow tips ammunition. I had no idea I
Speaker 1: was like clueless. I probably would wearing a nice little
Speaker 1: suit with heels. You know. Back in two thousand fifteen,
Speaker 1: Colleen told me quote pseudonyms can be difficult to track
Speaker 1: down depends on what other information you have. For example,
Speaker 1: do you have a birth date or even a year
Speaker 1: of birth, or even a range of age such as
Speaker 1: thirty to thirty five years old, any family member or
Speaker 1: spouse names. No, At the time, I had none of this.
Speaker 1: Nothing is impossible, she said, until one learns it's really impossible. Gosh,
Speaker 1: I think you just first said you were doing research
Speaker 1: on someone called rex Ferrell. Give corrects me up that
Speaker 1: name whenever it's spare time. I was like digging another
Speaker 1: rabbit hole going. I would find more and more information,
Speaker 1: and a lot you had already found two, you know.
Speaker 1: I was exchanging notes with you about Okay, I found this, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I read that too. What did you see this? We
Speaker 1: were doing that back and forth, and then I found
Speaker 1: the piece that you hadn't found yet, and it was
Speaker 1: what opened the door. Well do you trying to speak
Speaker 1: to the Rex Ferrell? There were so many dead ends
Speaker 1: along the way. I'd learned something that would turn out
Speaker 1: to be completely wrong, and I'd find myself going in
Speaker 1: a totally different direction. At one point, I thought the
Speaker 1: real Rex Ferrell was a real estate agent in Miami.
Speaker 1: She was connected to a man who will We'll get
Speaker 1: into that later. Anyway, I sent off a few emails
Speaker 1: and I hoped for the best. I never heard back,
Speaker 1: and after looking into this woman further, I started to
Speaker 1: have my doubts. The age didn't quite line up. It
Speaker 1: just didn't feel right. But this piece that Colleen found
Speaker 1: led me to someone who claimed to be a friend
Speaker 1: of Rex Ferrell's and author herself, Karen Abbott. She once
Speaker 1: quoted an email from Rex publicly, I don't want to
Speaker 1: be a hero, tragic or otherwise. Rex supposedly wrote, I
Speaker 1: just want to sit in my rocker on my front
Speaker 1: porch and tell my grandson's stories. They're certain are fantastic lies. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: Abbott didn't want to talk to me without Rex's permission,
Speaker 1: which she never got as far as I know, so
Speaker 1: she declined to participate in this podcast. It was frustrating,
Speaker 1: but I understand. I'm protective of anyone who shares their
Speaker 1: story with me too. Either way, I felt like I
Speaker 1: was getting closer, but then at the beginning of this year,
Speaker 1: I made a few more phone calls, talked to a
Speaker 1: bunch of people, and literally stumbled into this conversation. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to give away my source, but I'll play
Speaker 1: you my responses. They asked me if I wanted to
Speaker 1: know who actually wrote hit Man, we do? That would
Speaker 1: be so helpful. You're kidding me. I finally knew her name. Wow, yeah,
Speaker 1: because she's I mean, she's been protected, her nance to
Speaker 1: redacted and everything. Wow. I've been wrong, so wrong. My
Speaker 1: jaws on the ground right now. I've been looking for
Speaker 1: this for a year. I mean really, it's been years,
Speaker 1: one concentrated year of looking. But suddenly there it was
Speaker 1: a bunch of letters on a pad of paper that
Speaker 1: I scribbled down into a name, the name. We'll be
Speaker 1: right back. Women are highly emotional, rarely rational creatures. One
Speaker 1: of the first things that jumped out to me when
Speaker 1: reading Hitman was the way Rex talked about women, or
Speaker 1: has he put it the h M i W, which
Speaker 1: stands for Hitman's ideal woman. The book's misogyny is unsettling.
Speaker 1: Take chapter eight, danger ego women in partners because of
Speaker 1: their uncanny ability to get into places and situations a
Speaker 1: man might find hard to duplicate because of their deceitful
Speaker 1: game playing natures, and because a woman can be twice
Speaker 1: as vicious as a man, a woman could be a
Speaker 1: better hired executioner than a man. We had an actor
Speaker 1: read some lines for Only for the World. A woman
Speaker 1: usually makes only one man her target, and the nesting
Speaker 1: instinct quickly takes her off the street and ties her
Speaker 1: down to the little world of babies and laundry and
Speaker 1: house work she creates and protects for her own. And
Speaker 1: then there's the part where Rex Ferrell advises his reader
Speaker 1: on avoiding quote woman problems. He writes, once a woman
Speaker 1: becomes the proclaimed property of one man, she feels it
Speaker 1: her duty to ward off other predators, whether real or imaginary,
Speaker 1: through suspicion, jealousy, accusation, or even by becoming her own detective,
Speaker 1: to protect and preserve her rightful place. This book has
Speaker 1: been linked to the deaths of two women and the
Speaker 1: attempted murder of another, and what happened to them is
Speaker 1: a familiar, terrifying and infuriating story. Women killed at home,
Speaker 1: at work in a car by their husband's ex husband's boyfriends, neighbors,
Speaker 1: in this book, women are property. They serve at one purpose,
Speaker 1: to serve their man, and if they don't, they should
Speaker 1: be properly done away with. She will have to be
Speaker 1: a very understanding woman, for if she knows too much,
Speaker 1: she could become a hitman's worst enemy on the face
Speaker 1: of the earth, and may someday have to be eliminated
Speaker 1: in the name of self preservation. Eliminated in the name
Speaker 1: of self preservation. It's like that Margaret Atwood quote. Men
Speaker 1: are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are
Speaker 1: afraid that men will kill them. The woman who wrote
Speaker 1: that book, if she needed the money, I mean, you
Speaker 1: can always choose to do something else. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you're that good of a writer, writes something else. That's
Speaker 1: Tiffany Horn Millie's daughter, Trevor's sister. When the family sued Paladin.
Speaker 1: Tiffany was a young mom. She was just trying to
Speaker 1: live a normal life, which she told me was a
Speaker 1: struggle at the time given what happened to her family.
Speaker 1: So she didn't have a ton to say about Paladin
Speaker 1: or the author when I asked her, But in caring
Speaker 1: about her story just propelled me to keep looking for answers.
Speaker 1: She remembers first hearing about the Hitman book leading up
Speaker 1: to the criminal trials before her dad, Lawrence Horn, and
Speaker 1: the hitman he hired, James Perry, were convicted. We found
Speaker 1: out that the book was actually written by a single mom. Like,
Speaker 1: how crazy is that? That was hard to wrap my
Speaker 1: head around. I didn't even think about that, like a
Speaker 1: mom actually like help kill him, because I mean those
Speaker 1: were her words. She wrote that book, and it's not
Speaker 1: just a fantasy. I know they said that, but I
Speaker 1: don't believe that because it was really explicit. I mean,
Speaker 1: did she strike you as a hit man? Oh no, no,
Speaker 1: but again you know, very limited telephone type contact. No,
Speaker 1: that's Don Corson. Remember he represented the plaintiff and the
Speaker 1: second time Hitman was found to be used in this case,
Speaker 1: in an attempted murder. He remembers speaking with the real
Speaker 1: rex Ferrell once as he built his case. The impression
Speaker 1: we got she was a grandmother and an author and
Speaker 1: she was doing this for money. Rex Ferrell won't confirm
Speaker 1: her identity. Paladin's closed now and their press lawyer won't
Speaker 1: confirm it. But my best available information tells me I'm right,
Speaker 1: And as far as I can tell, the real rex
Speaker 1: Ferrell is now a grandmother in her seventies. She has
Speaker 1: a social media presence and some of her posts are public.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't be surprised by anything anymore. But she's not
Speaker 1: at all what I pictured, not from what you'd imagine
Speaker 1: from everything we've heard about the typical Paladin writer. She's
Speaker 1: shared liberal memes about immigration, privilege in women's rights, and
Speaker 1: she's really funny. I came across a few videos of her.
Speaker 1: Her hair is white for the most part, she has
Speaker 1: green eyes, and she's beautiful. In one of these videos,
Speaker 1: she's singing, laughing, and wearing a sweater that says Grandma
Speaker 1: on it. She has a slight Southern acts in and
Speaker 1: yet it's hard to imagine this is the same person
Speaker 1: who told their readers the kill is the easiest part
Speaker 1: of the job. People kill one another every day. It
Speaker 1: takes no great effort to pull a trigger or plunge
Speaker 1: a knife. Is being able to do so in a
Speaker 1: manner that will not link yourself or your employer to
Speaker 1: the crime. That makes you a professional and the acceptance
Speaker 1: of the valuelessness of life has given your own life value.
Speaker 1: Regardless of whether Rex Ferrell ever decides to tell me
Speaker 1: her story. Case files from the two lawsuits filed against
Speaker 1: Paladin gives some insight into how this book was written
Speaker 1: and given everything we know now well, she submitted her
Speaker 1: first manuscript to Paladin Press with the attached letter dated
Speaker 1: November that reads, Dear Sirs, enclosed is my manuscript entitled Hitman,
Speaker 1: a tech call Handbook. And because we've now shared Rex
Speaker 1: was a woman, we got a different actor to read
Speaker 1: Rex's correspondence. This book is written in first person, but
Speaker 1: a fictional professional hit man, Finnie Finnigan. The third chapters
Speaker 1: contained many references to books I and my friends have
Speaker 1: purchased from your fine library. This letter in manuscript landed
Speaker 1: on Virginia Thomas's desk, who was an editor at Paladin
Speaker 1: at the time. I reached out to her for this
Speaker 1: podcast and didn't hear back. But that's okay. There are
Speaker 1: court documents again, Attorney Don Corson, I remember we took
Speaker 1: miss Thomas's deposition or testimony in Bomby's case. I was
Speaker 1: able to get a transcript of that deposition. Most of
Speaker 1: Thomas's answers are I don't know or I don't recall.
Speaker 1: I mean she was deposed something like eighteen years later,
Speaker 1: but don has her read some of her correspondence with
Speaker 1: rex Ferrell. Thomas says, after reading rex Ferrell's manuscript, she
Speaker 1: rejected it and sent the author a dated January four.
Speaker 1: It reads, you will find your manuscript for Hitman a
Speaker 1: technical handbook enclosed. Since we publish only nonfiction, we cannot
Speaker 1: use this, and that's our producer, Michelle reading for Virginia.
Speaker 1: Our readers are interested in the how to aspects of
Speaker 1: survival weapons and military a thank you for allowing us
Speaker 1: to consider your work. The idea is intriguing, as are
Speaker 1: some of the tactics you suggest. Have you considered writing nonfiction?
Speaker 1: The concluding sentence reads, good luck to you with this project.
Speaker 1: Feel free to contact me with other ideas that might
Speaker 1: fit our market. The original intention was quite a long
Speaker 1: ways from what Plato turned it into. Rex Ferrell took
Speaker 1: Thomas up on her suggestion and sent another proposal in
Speaker 1: letter dated January enclosed. Please find the first two chapters
Speaker 1: in an outline proposed which you suggested for my on
Speaker 1: fiction rewrite hit Man a technical manual for the independent contractor.
Speaker 1: According to court documents, about three weeks later, on February.
Speaker 1: Thomas replies with this recommendation, make sure the material is
Speaker 1: how to, since our readers buy books to learn, but
Speaker 1: flush out the material with personal anecdotes as though you
Speaker 1: were a working or retired hit man. People essentially like
Speaker 1: to read about other people. Rex Ferrell writes back six
Speaker 1: days later, the tone I am using is totally professional. However,
Speaker 1: due to the serious nature of the book, I am
Speaker 1: finding it hard to apply appropriate anecdotes. I do include
Speaker 1: accounts of real hit men who have been apprehended by
Speaker 1: the authorities, and I feel very satisfied that the finished
Speaker 1: product will make us both Prior and Virginia. Thomas responds with,
Speaker 1: as I told you in our tele phone conversation, we
Speaker 1: received Hitman, and I am excited about it. I found
Speaker 1: it most intriguing reading. Congratulations, you did what you set
Speaker 1: out to do. I just want to underline what's happening here.
Speaker 1: Rex Ferrell initially submitted a work of fiction, and at
Speaker 1: Paladin Presses Encouragement or guidance, whatever you want to call it,
Speaker 1: wrote an entirely new book other than you know, asking
Speaker 1: rex Ferrell to change the format of the book. There
Speaker 1: were some other changes. For example, apparently the original preface
Speaker 1: to Hitman. Read this information and more will be made
Speaker 1: available to enrich your fantasies and add spice to your
Speaker 1: dreams of reasserting your status as the dominant sex of
Speaker 1: the species who ruled with an iron will in the
Speaker 1: days before overpopulation, mass production, and women's liberation. Ultimately, that
Speaker 1: didn't make it into the book, and Rex Ferrell initially
Speaker 1: had a different last name, one that wasn't working for Paladin.
Speaker 1: Thomas writes, we must change the name Rex Savage to
Speaker 1: something a little less stereotyped. However, Rex Savage, the publisher
Speaker 1: suggests that you think of another name, possibly something that
Speaker 1: sounds like a person who might belong to the mob,
Speaker 1: although not too obviously. Then let's develop a persona for
Speaker 1: the author for advertisements and future books. Write a personal
Speaker 1: history for Mr X for that use. I am inclosing
Speaker 1: your copy of the contract for hit Man signed by us.
Speaker 1: There was a notation at the top right corner that
Speaker 1: read five advanced paid. You will notice that we also
Speaker 1: signed the paragraph on privacy that you added. She wrote.
Speaker 1: That paragraph, apparently written by Rex Ferrell, said publisher agrees
Speaker 1: to accept full financial and legal responsibility for any litigations
Speaker 1: or censors that may arise out of this same ale
Speaker 1: use or misuse of the contents of the contracted book. Furthermore,
Speaker 1: publisher will, to the best of his ability, protect the
Speaker 1: true identity of the author. I'm so fascinated by all
Speaker 1: of this because these are her words, that's all I
Speaker 1: have from her. And you have to wonder if her
Speaker 1: book stayed the work of fiction she initially wrote, if
Speaker 1: it never been turned into how To Manual, if any
Speaker 1: of this would have ever happened. Paladin went on to
Speaker 1: sell just over copies of hit Man, mostly via their
Speaker 1: catalogs and eventually even through bookstores like Borders, Powell's Bookstore,
Speaker 1: and Barnes and Noble, and then on March three, Millie
Speaker 1: and Trevor Horn and Janie Saunders were murdered. The author,
Speaker 1: who was just horrified that this has happened. I mean,
Speaker 1: Stephen King was horrified when learned that one of his
Speaker 1: books inspired a school shooting. I think that's a normal
Speaker 1: human reaction. That's Tom Kelly, Paladin's lawyer. She's a decent
Speaker 1: human being and wanted the book off the shelf. We
Speaker 1: know the author was fearful of something like this, happening
Speaker 1: based on her correspondence with Paladin as she was writing
Speaker 1: this book, and once it did, she apparently tried to
Speaker 1: do the right thing. Of course, her request was not honored.
Speaker 1: Don Courson again, who represented the plaintiff and the second
Speaker 1: hit Man lawsuit, and Paladin kept it on the market,
Speaker 1: and their sales actually spiked because a lot of notoriety,
Speaker 1: a lot of publicity about it. According to court documents,
Speaker 1: sales of Hitman increased dramatically during the period after the
Speaker 1: author asked that the manual be withdrawn due to the murders.
Speaker 1: They made a conscious decision to continue selling the Hitman
Speaker 1: book knowing and it had been used to murder people,
Speaker 1: and it was a strategic choice in their part. In
Speaker 1: other words, they knew what had been done, they knew
Speaker 1: that the harm had been inflicted on humans, they knew
Speaker 1: the author didn't want to They thought they're more likely
Speaker 1: to win the case if they kept it on the market.
Speaker 1: So that's how the book came to be, how it evolved,
Speaker 1: and how she wanted to pull it after the murders.
Speaker 1: But I still have so many questions. Should I even
Speaker 1: be looking for this person? To someone who wrote under
Speaker 1: a pen name, who obviously wanted to protect their identity
Speaker 1: deserve to remain anonymous after something they created and put
Speaker 1: out into the world actually hurt people. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but if I could talk to Rex Ferrell, I think
Speaker 1: the first thing I'd ask her is what do people
Speaker 1: get wrong about you? Who was she then and who
Speaker 1: is she today? I'd like to ask her the same
Speaker 1: question I've asked so many others in this podcast. Is
Speaker 1: there anything to be learned from all this? Until then,
Speaker 1: all I have is this voicemail but us. When I
Speaker 1: thought I'd reached the end of the Rex Feral journey,
Speaker 1: and when I thought that I'd never really understand the
Speaker 1: woman I saw on social media, the grandmother who apparently
Speaker 1: feels strongly about women's rights, immigration, I found an arrest record.
Speaker 1: The person who I believe to be the author had
Speaker 1: been connected with an incident related to kidnapping, false imprisonment,
Speaker 1: armed robbery, burglary, grand theft, and conspiracy. And what my
Speaker 1: image of this person was about to do a whole
Speaker 1: other one. Eight. Once again, I'd come across an entirely
Speaker 1: different story, one that I never ever saw coming. I
Speaker 1: looked into the man she was arrested in connection with
Speaker 1: and every newspaper article or court record led to another
Speaker 1: one and another one. I'm still finding them. This man,
Speaker 1: he was a former police officer. He was a master
Speaker 1: instructor in combat karate. This guy would become an FBI fugitive,
Speaker 1: and one retired sergeant who encountered him told me he
Speaker 1: is still suffering from PTSD from it. This guy used
Speaker 1: a lot of pseudonyms, among them Rex Reid and Rex
Speaker 1: James Rex so that macho rogue Maverick that Hitman is
Speaker 1: based on. I was starting to realize maybe he did exist.
Speaker 1: After all. People told us that Rex Reid was a
Speaker 1: bad guy and that if anybody tried to mess with
Speaker 1: them that you know, you guys will never take him alive,
Speaker 1: and you know some officers might get hurt in the process.
Speaker 1: That's next on hit Man. Hitman is a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and hit Home Media. It's produced and
Speaker 1: reported by Me Jasmine Morris. Our supervising producer is Michelle Lance.
Speaker 1: Mark Flatto is our story consultant. Executive producers our main
Speaker 1: guest Hat ticket Or and Me, mixing by Michelle Lance
Speaker 1: and Josh Grogison. Our fact checker is not Sumi Ajisaka
Speaker 1: voice acting by Levi Petrie and Kelly Jane Farnsworth. Special
Speaker 1: thanks to Andrew Goldberg, our theme song by Alice McCoy,
Speaker 1: and additional music written and produced by the students at
Speaker 1: DIME powered by the Detroit Institute of Music Education,