Speaker 1: A woman recently asked how I could hear good conscious
Speaker 1: when an instruction book or murder. Some of this you
Speaker 1: can figure it out without a book, and you couldn't.
Speaker 1: Some of it is bordering on you know what, do
Speaker 1: we really want to tell people this because it's I
Speaker 1: feel no responsibility. I have no ethical responsibility for the
Speaker 1: misuse of information. 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. There will be
Speaker 1: always someone who is agreed by the content of someone's speech.
Speaker 1: The books published are very unlikely to be the cause
Speaker 1: of criminal conduct, murder, mayhem. When have you? She was saying,
Speaker 1: if something ever happened is to me, it's Lawrence Horne.
Speaker 1: And we laughed about it. We're like Millie, he's crazy,
Speaker 1: but he's not that crazy. He was with Halic. She
Speaker 1: was in Montgomery County Police and the FBI, and he
Speaker 1: called Lawrence right in front of you. At the time
Speaker 1: that you married Willie Murray, did you love her? No?
Speaker 1: After several years or or decades, the families that deal
Speaker 1: with this type of horndous trauma are constantly dealing with
Speaker 1: the fallout. It never goes away. I first thought this
Speaker 1: was a podcast about a book, a murder manual for
Speaker 1: want to be Hitman. I mean it is, But the
Speaker 1: very first phone call I made when I started reporting
Speaker 1: was to Tiffany Horn, Lawrence and Millie's oldest daughter. Over
Speaker 1: the last fifteen years of making radio, I find most
Speaker 1: people want to be heard, They want to know their
Speaker 1: story matters, and they just like to know they'll be remembered.
Speaker 1: But when I first spoke with Tiffany, she was immediately hesitant.
Speaker 1: Actually hesitant doesn't do her reaction justice. When I started
Speaker 1: to explain that I'd want the experience to be meaningful
Speaker 1: for her, she just thought I was being patronizing. This
Speaker 1: was a woman who's been through hell and some days
Speaker 1: is still there. She had to want to do this,
Speaker 1: and she had to know I wasn't going to burn
Speaker 1: her like other journalists had. She told me she was
Speaker 1: once on a talk show and they surprised her by
Speaker 1: inviting a hit man on stage. Can you imagine. So
Speaker 1: in our last episode, I want to talk about a
Speaker 1: dynamic that's right at the core of many true crime podcasts,
Speaker 1: the one between the journalist and a survivor. It's a
Speaker 1: relationship filled with all these unexamined obligations and limitations and expectations.
Speaker 1: It's a balancing act. Over of course of the last
Speaker 1: two years getting to know Tiffany and learning how to
Speaker 1: speak to her, how best to listen. This process informed
Speaker 1: every step along the way, and We've come a very
Speaker 1: long way from where we started. I'm Jasmine Morris from
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio and hit Home Media. This is hit Man.
Speaker 1: Tiffany and I had months of phone conversations before we
Speaker 1: first met in two thousand eighteen. We'd try to meet,
Speaker 1: but plans would fall through, and when we finally nailed
Speaker 1: down a date, I immediately booked a flight to d C,
Speaker 1: got a hotel room near Tiffany's home, and waited for
Speaker 1: her there. I was excited to finally meet her, to
Speaker 1: be able to sit down across from her, look her
Speaker 1: in the eye, and have a conversation. After all the
Speaker 1: recording equipment was set up, the furniture rearranged, she called
Speaker 1: to say she wasn't going to make it. She was
Speaker 1: having car troubles. I could tell she was unsure, wondering
Speaker 1: if this was all even worth it, But she did
Speaker 1: eventually show up, so Tiffy and let's just start with
Speaker 1: you saying your name and like who you are in
Speaker 1: relation to this story? Like who are you? I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I just feel like I'm myself. So
Speaker 1: that's hard. Do you see what I'm saying? Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: I'd just like to know how people see themselves within. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the thing. I have different facets and yeah, it's
Speaker 1: kind of the perfect example of how our relationship evolved.
Speaker 1: I'd ask a question, she'd question it, but we'd eventually
Speaker 1: find our way. Why are you sitting here with me today?
Speaker 1: I did do this podcast because I felt like there
Speaker 1: were some things that I've never had a chance to
Speaker 1: talk about, and I can't have these conversations really with anyone.
Speaker 1: One of the things she's told me over and over
Speaker 1: is how lonely it is to be her. I think
Speaker 1: that's why Tiffany ultimately did talk to me. She hadn't
Speaker 1: had anyone listened before, really listen. Pushed through her apprehension.
Speaker 1: Anxiety and grief sometimes disguised as anger. You become almost
Speaker 1: like a pariah, and and it's too painful for people
Speaker 1: to want to deal with. So even if you were
Speaker 1: the victim, you kind of become ostracized and on the
Speaker 1: outside of just society in some ways. But even after
Speaker 1: Tiffany agreed to talk to me, she let me in
Speaker 1: a little and then pull away. At one point, after
Speaker 1: one of our interviews, I was walking her to her
Speaker 1: car and she seemed nervous. She then stopped me in
Speaker 1: the parking garage, turned to me and said, I have
Speaker 1: to ask you something, point blank, so direct, and then
Speaker 1: she asked me if I was related to the author
Speaker 1: of hit Man. I was taken it back. It sounds
Speaker 1: far fetched until you think about the manipulation she's experienced
Speaker 1: in her life, mostly at the hands of her own father,
Speaker 1: Lawrence Horn, the man behind so many of Motown's greatest hits,
Speaker 1: who also engineered a hit on his own family. My
Speaker 1: kids have a joke and they say, I think everyone's
Speaker 1: a psychopath, and that has to do with your experiences
Speaker 1: with your dad. Yeah, the gift that keeps giving. Try
Speaker 1: to remember everything that happened around the murders, like when
Speaker 1: detectives believe Lawrence was trying to scout his ex wife's
Speaker 1: house he wasn't allowed in, and he was asking which
Speaker 1: room Trevor slept in, which one of right up there.
Speaker 1: Even the night before the murders, he called Tiffany trying
Speaker 1: to get information on where her mom and sister would be.
Speaker 1: He put this on his own daughter, and it's a
Speaker 1: lot to carry. I had been so terrified of that
Speaker 1: man that he would come after me, even in ways
Speaker 1: like maybe hiring someone to pretend to be a boyfriend.
Speaker 1: I mean, I had fantasies like this, So it was
Speaker 1: really hard for me to trust a lot of people.
Speaker 1: And if I felt that they did anything weird around
Speaker 1: my family, I was I was done with them because
Speaker 1: I just I didn't know how far he would go.
Speaker 1: In the years after the murders, Tiffany really struggled. There's
Speaker 1: times that I've been just at the end of my robe.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say suicidal, but there were times when I
Speaker 1: was really close to it, especially like two years ago,
Speaker 1: like it was bad. Having my kids saved me. They
Speaker 1: were my angels. They made my life so fulfilling even
Speaker 1: with all the pain. Tiffany tries every day to rise
Speaker 1: above what's happened to her. But despite all the trauma
Speaker 1: she's endured, this did not break her, and this next
Speaker 1: story proves that in the spring of two thousand twelve,
Speaker 1: sixteen years after Lawrence Horn had been convicted, Tiffany discovered
Speaker 1: that her dad had been transferred to a maximum security
Speaker 1: prison five minutes away from her house in Maryland. She'd
Speaker 1: driven by this prison so many times and wondered if
Speaker 1: he was there. One day, a family friend who ministered
Speaker 1: at the prison confirmed her hunch. Tiffany doesn't trust people,
Speaker 1: but she does seem to trust the universe. She looks
Speaker 1: for cues and acts on them. So I felt like
Speaker 1: that was a sign. I was like, Okay, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have to go up there. After stalling for two years,
Speaker 1: she finally made that five minute drive. I sat in
Speaker 1: the parking lot and just like, can I do this?
Speaker 1: Do I really have the strength to do this? And
Speaker 1: I felt like, you know what, you're here, It's not
Speaker 1: an accident that this is so close to your home.
Speaker 1: She sat there for what she says felt like an eternity.
Speaker 1: Then she pulled herself out of her seat, walked into
Speaker 1: the facility and tried to find her dad. There were
Speaker 1: so many demons and so many things that I had
Speaker 1: been battling, so much rage that had been building inside me.
Speaker 1: It was important for me to to let that go
Speaker 1: and to face him. I wanted to really settle with
Speaker 1: him and look him in his eye and also just
Speaker 1: see my dad again, like I wanted to be that
Speaker 1: little girl that I used to be and just look
Speaker 1: at him that way instead of as this monster. Tiffany
Speaker 1: speaks so highly of her father. Back then, he told
Speaker 1: her how to listen to music, they'd go to movies
Speaker 1: together and take ski trips. And She's not the only
Speaker 1: one who remembers Lawrence this way. Everyone I spoke with
Speaker 1: who worked with him at Motown describe him as this charismatic, funny,
Speaker 1: quiet and kind man. It's hard to see him as
Speaker 1: the same person. So as Tiffany was telling me this story,
Speaker 1: I was at first in awe of her. I mean,
Speaker 1: the amount of courage it must have taken it is
Speaker 1: just astounding. Second, I was hoping the story would end
Speaker 1: with some sense of closure for her. She'd worked with
Speaker 1: a restorative justice and reconciliation program in Maryland, also known
Speaker 1: as Victim of Fender Dialogue, and had the support of
Speaker 1: a therapist, but when she visited him this time, she
Speaker 1: was going to be alone with him. There were no therapists,
Speaker 1: no counselors. It was just the two of them, like
Speaker 1: the old days. He was still in a wheelchair. He
Speaker 1: looked even worse. His glasses were askewed. I think he
Speaker 1: had like tape on his glasses. I mean, it just
Speaker 1: it broke my heart. Lawrence was sick, he'd been battling cancer.
Speaker 1: A flood of empathy washed over me, and I just
Speaker 1: I felt bad for him. I did. I felt instantaneously.
Speaker 1: It's like, wow, this is awful, you know, and this
Speaker 1: is really what it comes down to. This is this
Speaker 1: is what happened to you because of the choices you
Speaker 1: made and you didn't have to go down that road.
Speaker 1: But instead of feeling like satisfaction, I felt horrible. I
Speaker 1: really wanted to talk to him in a kind and
Speaker 1: gentle way, like I wasn't coming at him aggressively or angry.
Speaker 1: That wasn't what I was there for. I just said,
Speaker 1: you know, I want you to know I forgive you.
Speaker 1: You told him that you forgave him. Yeah, did he like?
Speaker 1: He teared up a little bit. He did. We had
Speaker 1: some moments. One of the first things he said was
Speaker 1: that he owed me a debt, and a lot of
Speaker 1: it seemed like rambling, but I think that was kind
Speaker 1: of his way of admitting that he had taken something
Speaker 1: from me and my sister. There was hope for a
Speaker 1: few minutes in the Hollywood version of this story. Maybe
Speaker 1: Lawrence gets emotional, Maybe he finally owns up to the
Speaker 1: pain he's caused. Maybe the unconditional love of a daughter
Speaker 1: proves overwhelming even for him. But this is in Hollywood.
Speaker 1: It's a prison in Maryland. He went into the manipulations
Speaker 1: and the denials, and he said things that he knew
Speaker 1: would be hurtful. I think he made a dig at
Speaker 1: my mother to like everyone thought she was so beautiful,
Speaker 1: but I didn't think that it was awful, and I
Speaker 1: just I was like, this is just a sick man.
Speaker 1: And he maintained his innocence until he died, right, And
Speaker 1: he really couldn't believe that I believe that he did it.
Speaker 1: And he even said to me, how could you think
Speaker 1: I'd do that to your brother. While Lawrence didn't give
Speaker 1: Tiffany what I hoped he'd give her, she did come
Speaker 1: away with something. I also had to be honest with
Speaker 1: myself about who this man was, and that the man
Speaker 1: of my childhood, the father of my childhood. You know,
Speaker 1: this larger than life character. This superhero maybe never even existed.
Speaker 1: It must be so complicated also loving someone who could
Speaker 1: do something like that. But it's taught me a lot
Speaker 1: about love, that you can love people even if they've
Speaker 1: hurt you. It actually makes you the better person because
Speaker 1: you're loving unconditionally. Lawrence Horn died a few years later
Speaker 1: in two thousand seventeen while serving his sentence in just
Speaker 1: a prison. But even with her father's death, despite her
Speaker 1: many attempts to connect with him beforehand, this is just
Speaker 1: one part of Tiffany's story that will never be resolved.
Speaker 1: It's just not that easy. We'll be right back resolution.
Speaker 1: That's what this is all about, right In a lot
Speaker 1: of true crime story endings are satisfying, almost to a fault.
Speaker 1: The investigation wraps up, the bad guys caught, justice has served,
Speaker 1: the end things are resolved. Over the last two years,
Speaker 1: Tiffany has shared so much and been so vulnerable with me,
Speaker 1: So I found myself wanting to sort of honor her
Speaker 1: with this podcast. I interviewed and got back in touch
Speaker 1: with lots of people from her past, those who had
Speaker 1: a hand in the murder investigations, her dad's former motown colleagues,
Speaker 1: lawyers who fought alongside her family. I even answered this
Speaker 1: unanswerable question of who wrote the book that started all
Speaker 1: of this, And at the same time, I was constantly
Speaker 1: hoping for resolution in a situation that just can't be resolved.
Speaker 1: Tiffany's stories, her traumas, there's no end to them. Tiffany's
Speaker 1: grief is still so present in her life, and certain
Speaker 1: months are really hard for her. March is always tough,
Speaker 1: the month her brother and mother were killed. November brings
Speaker 1: her mom's birthday. In our first phone call, I told
Speaker 1: Tiffany that I didn't want this podcast to be about
Speaker 1: Lawrence Horn. I wanted it to be about the people
Speaker 1: he heard. Tiffany was eighteen years old at the time
Speaker 1: of the murders. When we started talking, she was forty three,
Speaker 1: the same age her mom was when she was killed.
Speaker 1: I'm actually forty four, and the fact that I'm this
Speaker 1: age is because I outlived my mom. On my birthday,
Speaker 1: I kind of had a moment where I felt like, Wow,
Speaker 1: I'm here. I'm literally like older than my mother ever was.
Speaker 1: Tiffany and I talked a lot about her mom. I
Speaker 1: really wanted to get to know Millie through Tiffany and
Speaker 1: her stories and to bring her to life a little
Speaker 1: bit in this podcast. And one of the things I
Speaker 1: learned along the way was that Tiffany's relationship with her
Speaker 1: mom wasn't simple either. Tiffany says she has a strong
Speaker 1: personality like her mom Millie did, so they'd often butt
Speaker 1: heads when she was a teenager. We were starting to
Speaker 1: understand each other more as I got old her. You know,
Speaker 1: I had gone to college. She was proud of her daughter,
Speaker 1: her firstborn. They'd just begun to get close again right
Speaker 1: around the time Milly was murdered, which makes this next
Speaker 1: story even more heartbreaking. I was a college student, so
Speaker 1: we would be up really late at night. I think
Speaker 1: it was probably one in the morning. The boy that
Speaker 1: I was dating at the time, we were on the
Speaker 1: phone and we got into a huge fight, so he
Speaker 1: hung up on me. Everybody would be on a speed
Speaker 1: dial that you talked to all the time. This was
Speaker 1: the big thing in but I mistakenly touched the number
Speaker 1: that would speed down my mother because it was dark.
Speaker 1: I was crying. I was upset. This was March second,
Speaker 1: the night Millie was killed. So I called my mom
Speaker 1: accidentally and I don't realize until she answers the phone
Speaker 1: in a like a really groggy, sleepy voice, but also
Speaker 1: with concern. And so I told her, I'm sorry, like,
Speaker 1: I didn't mean to call you. I got in a
Speaker 1: fight with the guy was dating. And she's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, you know, but it will be okay. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, go back to bed. I know you
Speaker 1: have to get up for work in a few hours.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I feel bad for calling you, and she
Speaker 1: was really nice about it, um and hung up the phone.
Speaker 1: Tiffany was the last person to speak with her mom
Speaker 1: because this phone call happened within an hour or so
Speaker 1: of the murders. I sometimes used to wonder was he
Speaker 1: already in the house, Like when I called, was he
Speaker 1: in the house already? I mean, it's it's just it's
Speaker 1: awful and it's nightmare inducing. And I used to think, God,
Speaker 1: I wish I could have done something, But what could
Speaker 1: I have done? This was really hard for Tiffany to
Speaker 1: talk about. It didn't even come up until our final interview,
Speaker 1: and it was the only time during many of our
Speaker 1: interviews where she got emotional. It was clear this memory
Speaker 1: still haunts her. There's also something else that kind of
Speaker 1: eats away at her. It's been to a five years
Speaker 1: and my sister and I have not been able to
Speaker 1: organize scattering her ashes. I've actually carried my ashes with
Speaker 1: me to every place I've lived in the last twenty
Speaker 1: five years. In the summer of after the Children's hospital settlement,
Speaker 1: Milly decided to take a trip to St. Martin and
Speaker 1: she brought her family with her, and so it was
Speaker 1: kind of like a girl's trip for her sisters and
Speaker 1: their daughters, only it was all women. You know. We
Speaker 1: had a great time. It was like three or four
Speaker 1: days on this island. They would shop and my mom
Speaker 1: treated herself to tennis bracelet, and she felt kind of
Speaker 1: guilty about it, and I remember saying, no, you deserve
Speaker 1: it because she had gone through all those years of
Speaker 1: you know, the court case, which is you children's hospital,
Speaker 1: just caring for my brother. I felt like she deserved it.
Speaker 1: Tiffany still has that tennis bracelet. And while it didn't
Speaker 1: seem like it at first, this trip ended up being
Speaker 1: far more important than Tiffany or her aunt's even realized
Speaker 1: there was. At one point we were there and I
Speaker 1: think she just felt really at peace and she said,
Speaker 1: if I was to ever die, I want you to
Speaker 1: bring my ashes back here because I love this place.
Speaker 1: She was very intentional about that, that's what she wanted,
Speaker 1: and my sister was really young at the time, as
Speaker 1: she even remembers her saying that. Last year, Tiffany told
Speaker 1: me she'd like to go back to St. Martin and
Speaker 1: fulfill her mother's wishes. It had been twenty five years
Speaker 1: since her mother's death and it just felt right. A
Speaker 1: few months later, she called me and said she happened
Speaker 1: to be looking up plane tickets and found one that
Speaker 1: was pretty cheap. She wanted to recreate that girl's trip
Speaker 1: her mother planned and booked two tickets, one for herself
Speaker 1: and one for her daughter, Maria. I was excited for
Speaker 1: Tiffany well, I knew it would be better sweet. This
Speaker 1: felt like a moment where maybe she could find some resolution,
Speaker 1: something could come to an end, And so we sent
Speaker 1: them with a microphone to document the trip, and then
Speaker 1: the night they were scheduled to fly out my phone
Speaker 1: rang I could tell him immediately something was wrong. Tiffany
Speaker 1: had tried to open her mother's urn and realized it
Speaker 1: was sealed shut. There was no way she could get
Speaker 1: it open. She had been kind of ambivalent about doing
Speaker 1: this all along, wondering if she wanted to or even
Speaker 1: could do it, so she took this as another sign
Speaker 1: she wasn't ready, but I told her she should still
Speaker 1: go show Maria the island sco about a spot for
Speaker 1: when the time is right. So they went and they
Speaker 1: retraced Tiffany's steps with her mom or she bought that
Speaker 1: tennis bracelet. They went to the beach and Maria got
Speaker 1: to learn some new things about her grandmother. And then
Speaker 1: on their last day there, this is pretty I think
Speaker 1: this might be a nice place for us to do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think this is a good spot. Tiffany and Maria
Speaker 1: also recorded on the car ride home from the airport,
Speaker 1: and when I listened to this after she sent me
Speaker 1: the recordings, it sounded almost like a eulogy for her mom,
Speaker 1: a memorial. Twenty five years later, I realized life is fleeting,
Speaker 1: and it's important to do what makes you happy, what
Speaker 1: really makes your family happy. Just being a single mother
Speaker 1: of three kids, it is hard, but having a special
Speaker 1: needs sin and then she was able to take some
Speaker 1: time to enjoy herself. She didn't care what people thought
Speaker 1: and That's what I kind of lived my life by, like,
Speaker 1: I don't care what people think, because you can't get
Speaker 1: that time back and nough. Tiffany never got to know
Speaker 1: her mother as an adult. There's so much that she
Speaker 1: absorbed as a kid. She's applying to her life now.
Speaker 1: She's a person who really enjoys life, traveling, spending time
Speaker 1: with her family, and building her career. Most of our
Speaker 1: phone conversations involve a lot of laughter. One of my
Speaker 1: favorite scriptures is Isaiah sixty one three and they Sickly.
Speaker 1: It says God gives us beauty for ashes, and I
Speaker 1: honestly feel like the ashes of my family being ruined
Speaker 1: that my dad created. My sister and I were able
Speaker 1: to take those ashes and create something beautiful. And we're
Speaker 1: still creating something beautiful to honor our brother and our mom.
Speaker 1: In one of our earlier episodes, I told you I'd
Speaker 1: called Tiffany to let her know we were focusing on
Speaker 1: her brother, Trevor, and she told me, I put my
Speaker 1: love for him in this box in my heart, and
Speaker 1: I don't open it often because it's too painful. I mean,
Speaker 1: a hit man broke into their quiet home in the
Speaker 1: middle of the night, and smothered an eight year old child.
Speaker 1: It's really the unthinkable. I could never quite capture the
Speaker 1: full horror of what happened to him. But this was
Speaker 1: Tiffany's reality, this was her family, and even though it's
Speaker 1: so hard for her, she insisted, he deserves to be seen.
Speaker 1: He deserves to be remembered. I do tell people that
Speaker 1: have losses, and it doesn't really matter how the loss happened.
Speaker 1: The loss is. The loss is. You're going to always
Speaker 1: grieve the these people that you love. It's a process.
Speaker 1: I grieve sometimes really hard some days, even all these
Speaker 1: years later, years later. I just want people to know
Speaker 1: that's okay, Like there's not a time limit. There isn't.
Speaker 1: I don't think I'll ever stop grieving my mom and
Speaker 1: my brother never, but you can remember the love that
Speaker 1: they gave you and just try to maybe turn that
Speaker 1: around to you pouring love into the ones that are
Speaker 1: with you right there. You hope you'll see them again,
Speaker 1: but you also have their presence, Like my mom comes
Speaker 1: to me in dreams. I have dreams also about my brother.
Speaker 1: You know. I see things and my kids that remind
Speaker 1: me of both of them, and those are great things.
Speaker 1: One of the things Tiffany told me while making this
Speaker 1: podcast was that she wanted to inspire other women, especially
Speaker 1: Black women, who have gone through horrific trauma and are struggling.
Speaker 1: She said, there's a light at the end of the
Speaker 1: tunnel and God has more in store for us. Tiffany
Speaker 1: wants to give hope to people, something she didn't have
Speaker 1: twenty six years ago. Maybe that's the opposite of hit Man,
Speaker 1: a book that taught people how to hurt people, And
Speaker 1: maybe that is a kind of resolution. After all, she's
Speaker 1: shared her story, all of it with you, millions of people.
Speaker 1: Maybe that means she doesn't have to hold it all
Speaker 1: by herself anymore. At least that's my hope. All of
Speaker 1: this stuff that's lived in her head for so long
Speaker 1: can now live here in this podcast, allowing her to
Speaker 1: set it down for just a minute. Yeah. Hitman is
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio and hit Home Media
Speaker 1: that's produced and reported by me Jasmine Morris. Our supervising
Speaker 1: producer is Michelle Lance. Mark Lotto is our story consultant.
Speaker 1: Executive producers, our main guest at Tikor and me. Mixing
Speaker 1: by Michelle Lance and Josh Ferguson. Our fact checker is
Speaker 1: now sumi Ajisaka. Special thanks to Tristan McNeil, Andrew Goldberg,
Speaker 1: Michael Garofolo, Kendall Waldman and Nathan Morris, and to Michael Blend,
Speaker 1: Will Pearson, Jerry Rowland, connal Byrne and Chuck Bryant Her
Speaker 1: Believing in the show our theme song by Alice McCoy in.
Speaker 1: Additional music written and produced by the students at DIME,
Speaker 1: powered by the Detroit Institute of Music Education to time