Rent a Hitman

In 2005, Bob Innes purchased the domain rentahitman.com to advertise website traffic analysis services. The word “hit” was a play on words, meaning clicks on a website. Twenty years later, he believes he’s saved over 100 lives by working with authorities to apprehend people who attempt to use his site to solicit murder. Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss "Rent a Hitman." Bob discovered that people were emailing him about hitman services. He began working with law enforcement agencies worldwide to bring these people to justice. You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetime Visit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation information An Emash Digital production See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Hello everyone and welcome to episode 487 of the True Crime All The Time Podcast.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:06Speaker 00

  I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson. Gibby, how are you?

• 0:11Speaker 01

  I'm doing good. How about you?

• 0:12Speaker 00

  I'm doing great.

• 0:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:14Speaker 00

  My wife is on spring break.

• 0:16Speaker 01

  She is.

• 0:17Speaker 00

  I probably shouldn't say that after I just said I'm doing great because

• 0:21Speaker 01

  Be honest.

• 0:21Speaker 00

  That would make her mad.

• 0:22Speaker 01

  You are having the time of your life.

• 0:25Speaker 00

  No, but she's, uh, she's having fun hopefully and, uh, it's been, you know, me and the dogs.

• 0:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's having fun too. Don't, don't think she's not.

• 0:34Speaker 00

  I hope she is. Um, you know, something I don't probably say enough, you know, if you like the content, make sure you, um, hit the like button.

• 0:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:43Speaker 00

  Subscribe to the channel, all of that good stuff. I know they always say that on YouTube videos.

• 0:48Speaker 01

  Well, it's important.

• 0:49Speaker 00

  It is.

• 0:50Speaker 01

  You know.

• 0:50Speaker 00

  But we also put this out on like our regular podcast feed. So I don't think to say it all that much.

• 0:56Speaker 01

  That's okay. If you're listening to the regular podcast, then go out to Apple and like.

• 1:01Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, that's true. Do it, do it there as well.

• 1:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, it all helps.

• 1:05Speaker 00

  It does. All right, buddy. Are you ready to get into this episode of True Crime All The Time?

• 1:09Speaker 01

  I am ready.

• 1:10Speaker 00

  We're talking about rent a hitman.

• 1:13Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:14Speaker 00

  And this is a little bit different type of episode than what we normally do.

• 1:18Speaker 01

  You didn't tell me you're gonna pull me into this with my personal.

• 1:22Speaker 00

  No, I think there are gonna be some real life examples here of maybe weaving you in. But in 2005, Bob Ennis, he purchased this domain, right? Rent a Hitman.com. Sounds like something you would do.

• 1:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38Speaker 00

  Just buy a domain. But now 20 years later, he believes that he saved over a hundred lives.

• 1:45Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:46Speaker 00

  By working with authorities to apprehend people who attempt to use his site to get a hitman.

• 1:53Speaker 01

  That's crazy.

• 1:54Speaker 00

  Solicit murder. So.

• 1:57Speaker 00

  It's a, it's a wild story and one I, I came across, I never heard of it before.

• 2:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05Speaker 00

  You know, it's a parody site. It's not a real site.

• 2:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:08Speaker 00

  It's a parody site that has received all of these inquiries over this 20 year span or so. I said, the owner of the site, this guy named Bob Ennis, he bought the domain name in October 2005 for $9.20.

• 2:27Speaker 01

  Oh, wow, man.

• 2:28Speaker 00

  And let's face it, I mean, a lot of domain names over the years, it's not expensive.

• 2:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:35Speaker 00

  Now, if you want to buy one that's, somebody already has or something like that, they can get very pricey.

• 2:41Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:41Speaker 00

  But a lot of people just buy them and hold on to them in the hopes that somebody will want it later on.

• 2:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:48Speaker 00

  And then they can flip it, almost like flipping a house.

• 2:51Speaker 01

  You're, uh, it's like a, what's that called? Your, you hedge your bet.

• 2:56Speaker 00

  Hedging your.

• 2:57Speaker 01

  Hedging, yeah.

• 2:59Speaker 00

  I don't think that's what this is, but.

• 3:01Speaker 01

  No.

• 3:03Speaker 00

  Not sure what you're trying to say.

• 3:04Speaker 01

  I can't think of the, of the term.

• 3:06Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 3:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's okay.

• 3:07Speaker 00

  It's good pod, though.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 3:08Speaker 00

  Yeah. It really is. So at the time that this all happened, he was in business school.

• 3:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:15Speaker 00

  And he was trying to advertise like a website, uh, traffic analyst type service.

• 3:24Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:25Speaker 00

  And so the word hit in Hitman or the part of Hitman was kind of like a play on words.

• 3:32Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:32Speaker 00

  Hit as in traffic.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:35Speaker 00

  Website hit.

• 3:36Speaker 01

  Got it, yeah.

• 3:37Speaker 00

  So that's why he bought it, not because he was going to be a hitman or thought that was cool or anything like that. And he has said he had no idea that he'd be involved in hundreds of cases of people really trying to hire a hitman.

• 3:53Speaker 01

  Well, and I don't know, I'm just thinking out loud right now. Do you?

• 3:59Speaker 00

  Which is different from what you normally do. How?

• 4:02Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah. Well, if you were going to hire a hitman, would you go out to such an obvious site?

• 4:11Speaker 00

  You wouldn't think so, right?

• 4:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:13Speaker 00

  So he's in business school. He's got this plan. Now it didn't work out, right? His business plan. And he tried to put it up for auction, the domain name, but he didn't receive any offers. And then he graduated from school and the buddies who worked with him on the site, they kind of went on, you know how people do, find full-time jobs and people just go on with their lives.

• 4:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:41Speaker 00

  But he held on to this domain name in the hopes that, you know, one day somebody might buy it. But no one ever did.

• 4:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:50Speaker 00

  Like I said, when I bought True Crime all the time, it wasn't expensive. Now, there's a fee, I think, to keep it or, you know, extend it, but it's not that expensive either. But no one wanted to buy this domain and it's not surprising. Maybe you would, somebody like you.

• 5:11Speaker 01

  Maybe.

• 5:11Speaker 00

  Who actually does that type of work, allegedly.

• 5:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. I did buy True Crime Al the time.

• 5:21Speaker 00

  Without one of the L's.

• 5:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 5:23Speaker 00

  Just in case.

• 5:24Speaker 01

  To it and but clearly I didn't spell it right.

• 5:28Speaker 00

  But, you know, years go by. And then in 2008, just kind of out of sheer curiosity, he decided to check the inbox. Cause I guess there was a, you know, an email associated with the domain name. And he found like 300 emails that had just been sitting there.

• 5:48Speaker 01

  Crazy.

• 5:49Speaker 00

  And in some of these emails were like serious inquiries on finding a hitman.

• 5:57Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 5:58Speaker 00

  I mean, you couldn't make this up.

• 6:00Speaker 01

  No.

• 6:00Speaker 00

  You really couldn't. And. So what he did is he decided to turn the site into a parody site.

• 6:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:09Speaker 00

  With some clues on the site that it's not real.

• 6:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:15Speaker 00

  So there was one example, like if you click on a banner, which a lot of websites have, and it takes you to like this FBI internet crime complaint center.

• 6:28Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 6:30Speaker 00

  There's also like fake testimonials, customer service awards, which what hitman would have customer service awards?

• 6:39Speaker 01

  We won the J D. Power Award for Best Hitman.

• 6:43Speaker 00

  Best customer service in the hitman industry. And the front page of the website includes this message. The dark web is not safe, but we are. It's common knowledge that the dark and deep webs are not safe marketplaces for carrying out nefarious deeds. These sites are often fraught with potential risks, including viruses and fraud is rampant. There's no guarantee of privacy and your information could be leaked to less than reputable websites, including law enforcement agencies, and that's no fun.

• 7:19Speaker 01

  Okay, so a front disclosure there.

• 7:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, so I mean, you have to kind of listen to this and imagine that you are someone who wants to hire a hitman.

• 7:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:30Speaker 00

  And you're visiting the site, you're reading this, it's right on the front page. It goes on to say, the good news is that Renna Hitman is a safe and secure option that's easily accessible on the world wide web.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 7:44Speaker 00

  We place great importance on maintaining the confidentiality of our clients and ensuring their privacy is protected under HIPAA. The Hitman Information Privacy and Protection Act of 1964.

• 7:59Speaker 01

  I love it.

• 8:00Speaker 00

  So it's HIPAA, H I P P A.

• 8:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:03Speaker 00

  In contrast, our competitors' websites can't make the same claims and their credibility is questionable at best. So when it comes to your safety and peace of mind, choose Renna Hitman.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:16Speaker 00

  And he signs it capisce, like the Godfather, right? Or something like that. So, I mean, let's be honest, right? Anybody reading that, you gotta pick up that it's not serious.

• 8:34Speaker 01

  You should be able to pick it up.

• 8:36Speaker 00

  Yeah. Now, as I've said many, many times, right? A lot of criminals are not smart.

• 8:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:43Speaker 00

  Many of them are, but a lot are not.

• 8:46Speaker 00

  I think you would have to be either oblivious to the information, meaning you're not reading it and who wouldn't read the whole thing, right?

• 8:55Speaker 01

  Thing.

• 8:56Speaker 00

  Or you just are of below average intelligence or maybe way below.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:03Speaker 00

  So in 2010, he received a message from a British woman named Helen Kaplan. She claimed that she was stranded in Canada with no passport. She wanted three family members in the UK killed for preventing her from receiving her father's inheritance.

• 9:23Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 9:25Speaker 00

  So first of all, you know, you, you have this stuff that we just mentioned, right?

• 9:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:31Speaker 00

  Which kind of clues you into, hey, something's not right here. This might not be legitimate. The other big thing is it's not like this is on the, the dark web. I mean, this is literally WWW dot, right?

• 9:47Speaker 01

  Worldwide web.

• 9:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, I, we've talked about the dark web many times. I don't know how to get on there. I don't want to know. I'm scared of what would happen. You know, I'm really worried about cybersecurity anyway.

• 9:57Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 9:58Speaker 00

  And so I would never want to go on there and open myself up to anything. It's one click for you, right?

• 10:05Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 10:06Speaker 00

  But that's the other thing. In your mind, if you want to hire a hitman, if your mind has gone to that place, which it should never do, but obviously for some people it does.

• 10:16Speaker 01

  It does.

• 10:17Speaker 00

  For whatever reason, do you legitimately think that you're going to be able to find one just on a regular website, the same way you would go on Amazon or buy a shirt or whatever it is?

• 10:31Speaker 01

  If you have common sense, you shouldn't think that, but I don't.

• 10:38Speaker 00

  So this woman, yeah, people surprised me too, but this woman wanted three people killed, right? Three members of her family. He didn't respond, but she sent a second email that in this one, she included names, addresses and other corroborating information. So I think he took that very, he took it more seriously, right?

• 11:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:00Speaker 00

  It's, it's more than just, hey, I'm looking to have three members killed. Okay, now here's their names, other information. This person's might be really serious.

• 11:12Speaker 01

  Kind of stepping up her game.

• 11:14Speaker 00

  Yeah. So he felt compelled to act at that point. He responded to Helen writing, do you still require our assistance? We can place you in contact with a field operative. And, you know, obviously we're going to get into what this guy does over the years, but it reminds me a little bit of, you know, there's people who work in the capacity of trying to find some of the child predators, children, you know, people who are in chat rooms, pretending to be children so that they can get some of these other people who

• 11:53Speaker 00

  are trying to prey on children off the streets. But within hours of him responding, he had her real name, legal name, her location, phone number. So yeah, I think at that point, as he has stated, he, he felt like this is real and

• 12:14Speaker 01

  Pretty legit.

• 12:14Speaker 00

  He's got some people who are in danger.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:18Speaker 00

  Her family members are in danger because if he doesn't do it, right, or he's not real, what are the chances that she's going to stop?

• 12:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, she'll find somebody.

• 12:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, she's probably just going to go on to try something else, right? So he reached out to a friend who was a police sergeant who contacted the Canadian authorities. And it turned out that this woman was actually wanted in the UK on some extraditable warrants for pretty serious charges.

• 12:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:52Speaker 00

  Already. And she served four months in prison, Helen did, for soliciting to commit murder before she was sent back to, to Britain.

• 13:06Speaker 01

  I mean, it's good, but I feel like it's four months. Is that it? Okay. I mean,

• 13:14Speaker 00

  Well,

• 13:16Speaker 01

  you could end up killing some people.

• 13:18Speaker 00

  Well, but remember she was wanted on very serious charges in Britain. So she's it's not like they were just letting her go.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, she was going to be locked down on some other stuff.

• 13:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, she was being extradited. So I think she was just incarcerated for four months in Canada while they were probably figuring out all the, you know, how everything would go down. But so he did this, Bob did, then he kind of returned to, you know, his normal life. He has said in in different sources that he never planned on kind of becoming this part time detective.

• 13:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:55Speaker 00

  But that's really what he became.

• 13:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it's like, it's kind of like catfishing, but in a in a different way.

• 14:02Speaker 00

  Yeah. And fascinating to me. He told the Guardian in 2021, in case you haven't noticed, I'm not really a murder for hire type of guy. I'm more of a save a life type who just happened to be in this position by way of a fluke. And it was kind of a fluky thing, right?

• 14:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:20Speaker 00

  He bought this website that he he thought was a kind of an interesting play on words and turns out that he's getting real requests for, you know, uh, someone to kill people.

• 14:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:35Speaker 00

  So he kept the side up. And despite all the clues that he put on there, right? The things we read, I'm sure he maybe even tweaked it.

• 14:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:46Speaker 00

  I don't know how, but he probably tweaked it over the years. Kind of clueing people in that this is not a real thing. These inquiries, they just kept coming in.

• 14:55Speaker 01

  It's like people were zoned in to just like sending the sending him the request and not paying attention to all the stuff that would have told you this is not real.

• 15:06Speaker 00

  Yeah. And I just wonder if that goes to people's mindsets, right? They they've gotten to that point where they've made the decision that they want somebody killed.

• 15:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:16Speaker 00

  Is it like, nothing's going to stop them? It's all they're thinking about. So is that why maybe they're looking past? You know, some of these other things, maybe I don't know why.

• 15:27Speaker 01

  Kind of hoping that's the reason.

• 15:29Speaker 00

  Yeah. In February 2018,

• 15:32Speaker 00

  20 year old Virginia resident Devon Faber used the site to attempt to hire someone to kill his ex-girlfriend and her parents, who he blamed for their breakup. He then planned to kidnap his ex's three-year-old daughter to raise her. I mean, imagine the weight that you would feel if you're this guy Bob.

• 15:56Speaker 01

  Oh man, surprised he didn't open up another site called Run a Kidnapper.com.

• 16:01Speaker 00

  Um, I just, I can't imagine what type of heaviness that would be.

• 16:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:07Speaker 00

  Reading through these and thinking, I think these are real.

• 16:11Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 16:12Speaker 00

  You know, so he reached out, he contacted the Augusta County Sheriff's Office, and they had an investigator pose as a hitman and start to communicate with this Faber guy. Faber told the investigator over the phone, I could be a really good father to her. He's talking about his girlfriend's daughter, but I need those three people taken out before I can do anything.

• 16:38Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 16:39Speaker 00

  You know, I talk about a lot of the videos that I watch on YouTube. I, I have a tendency to really kind of get caught up in watching videos. And I like some of the, the police pull over videos where people freak out and things like that. But you know, what are really interesting videos are the undercover ones where people are caught thinking that they are hiring a hitman, right? A lot of time to happen inside a car. They've got the car wired for both video and, and audio. And people think they're sitting there talking to a hitman and they're really talking to a undercover police officer.

• 17:18Speaker 01

  Officers just waiting for that money exchange.

• 17:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, those are fascinating to me. And that's essentially what's happened, happening here is happening over the phone. But in this case, money was never exchanged because he couldn't come up with any funds. He was arrested though, on February 12th, 2018. A jail informant later testified that Faber told him, he was only going to get probation and he planned on kidnapping the child once he was released. Okay, again, shut the, you know what up? I mean, I don't want them to because.

• 17:55Speaker 00

  We want them to get caught, but it's just like, how dumb are these people?

• 17:59Speaker 01

  Pretty dumb.

• 18:00Speaker 00

  And, and a lot of instances is a good thing, right? Because if what he's saying is correct, and you kind of have to take him at his word, right? On, on something like that, once he gets out, he's going to do it. And maybe that means he's going to kill some people too, or he's just going to kidnap this girl. But either way, it's going to be a pretty horrific crime.

• 18:25Speaker 01

  He can never be part of the Italian job crew.

• 18:28Speaker 00

  Well, because he can't keep his mouth shut.

• 18:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:30Speaker 00

  Another former inmate said Faber was remorseful and regretted his actions. So, all right, he's telling people different things, maybe. A competency evaluation noted that Faber's brain didn't develop normally, which disrupted his development and language skills. His mother testified that he grew up with a, with learning and behavioral issues and was an outcast growing up.

• 18:54Speaker 01

  So was I.

• 18:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, but you've been pretty honest about some of your difficulties growing up. But look at you now.

• 19:02Speaker 01

  That's right, still Mensa. So I'm saying.

• 19:06Speaker 00

  He got on the stand and admitted to stating he would kidnap his ex-girlfriend's daughter for leased. And he added, I say stuff out of my mouth I don't mean to say. That sounds like something you would say. And then I would say, as opposed to what, saying out of your ass or, you know, or whatever.

• 19:25Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 19:26Speaker 00

  But, you know, it sounds to me like he did have some, maybe some, you know, learning difficulties. His IQ was probably on the low side. He pleaded guilty to two counts of solicitation to commit first degree murder. And in 2019, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison with 10 years suspended. So, you know, he essentially got 10 years and part of that he'd probably already served anyway.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:53Speaker 00

  The one thing that, that jumps out at, at me is that, you know, obviously there was a reason for them to ask for a competency evaluation. And you can kind of understand why, but he was convicted and sentenced. So it didn't actually say the results of the, the competency evaluation, but you can kind of infer from what happened.

• 20:16Speaker 01

  I mean, 10 years is not bad. I mean.

• 20:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, he didn't actually kill somebody, but it's a serious crime.

• 20:23Speaker 01

  It is a serious crime.

• 20:24Speaker 00

  Solicitation to murder. So then we transition to a Michigan woman named Wendy Ween. She used the site to try to hire a hitman to kill her ex-husband in the summer of 2020. Ween filled out a service request form.

• 20:41Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 20:41Speaker 00

  On the site, which Bob Ennis added in 2014. Like I said, you know, he's, I don't want to say having fun because it's not the right word.

• 20:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:51Speaker 00

  But obviously he's tweaking the site as the years go by. This form requires users to give their name, email, phone number, and the same informations for their target.

• 21:03Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 21:05Speaker 00

  And now she used a fake name when she filled out the, the form, but she did include other personal identifying information.

• 21:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:16Speaker 00

  She also gave her ex-husband's address, workplace and work schedule. So not that hard, right?

• 21:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:23Speaker 00

  To figure out who, who she is, if you're doing just a little bit of digging. So he ends up reporting her to the Michigan State Police. An undercover detective contacted Wendy on July 17th, 2020, and he made an arrangement to meet at her at a cafe later that day. She believed that she was meeting an operative from Rent a Hitman.

• 21:48Speaker 01

  It'd be funny if they showed up with like a Rent a Hitman shirt on and handed her a shirt too, like, here's your free shirt for using the site.

• 21:58Speaker 00

  Oh, I, I know it's not funny. This is a very serious thing, but in a way it is kind of humorous to think about what he's able to get these people to do.

• 22:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, because you would think. Maybe if it didn't click in their head at first, as right before they hit that enter button, they'd be like, you know what? This seems too.

• 22:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, this this don't seem right.

• 22:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:22Speaker 00

  So the detective got into the passenger seat of her vehicle. You know, they started talking. She accused her ex-husband of being a pedophile. She described him in detail. She gave this guy his address, place of employment, and the times he left for work and got home.

• 22:40Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 22:41Speaker 00

  So.

• 22:42Speaker 01

  Detailed.

• 22:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, the details, I guess, that a hitman would need. She also gave the detective a down payment of $200 and agreed to pay 5,000 when the job was done.

• 22:54Speaker 01

  Just you gotta put 200 down today and the balance at the time of completion.

• 22:58Speaker 00

  And that seems unbelievable, right? 200 bucks and and I mean, $5,000 to kill somebody. I mean, people have killed for a lot less. We've talked about it on our episode.

• 23:09Speaker 01

  The only thing would make it more funny if uh funnier is if they uh, you know, were finances for you.

• 23:17Speaker 00

  You know, pay uh $133 a month or something like that. So the detective filed a report and Ween was arrested days later. On November 12th, 2021, she pleaded guilty to solicitation of murder and using a computer to commit a crime.

• 23:36Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 23:37Speaker 00

  You know, they got mail fraud. I guess you got computer crime.

• 23:41Speaker 01

  Wire fraud, maybe.

• 23:42Speaker 00

  Wire fraud. There's all kinds of different ones. In January of 2022, she was sentenced to seven to 20 years in prison.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  Well, again, it fits the crime.

• 23:52Speaker 00

  It does. It really does. I mean, you could make an argument for longer, but and you know, you go back to the $200, right? If you're the fake hitman, if you're the detective, you don't care how much it is. I don't think I don't think it matters.

• 24:06Speaker 01

  Nope.

• 24:06Speaker 00

  Any amount of money as a down payment, like you said, the exchange of cash is really what kind of seals the person's fate.

• 24:16Speaker 01

  I just wondering, you know, now that when she's sitting in prison, they're like, so what'd you get trouble for? And she she tells her story. You know what I mean?

• 24:25Speaker 00

  There's no way she tells the whole thing.

• 24:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's got, she probably makes a different story up.

• 24:30Speaker 00

  Well, she could, she could go with the hitman angle. She's got to leave the website, the rent a hitman, all of that.

• 24:37Speaker 01

  All that out.

• 24:38Speaker 00

  Out of it. Cause you know, she had to learn at some point.

• 24:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:42Speaker 00

  That that's how she was caught. In the spring of 2022, 31 year old Leaf Hitman was living in Los Cruces, New Mexico. Court documents indicated that he lived with a state deported guardian because of intellectual disabilities. He was in a long-term relationship and planning to get married. But he wanted his mother or his girlfriend's mother killed first. So he visited rentahitman.com. Between April and May, Hitman repeatedly solicited a hitman to murder his girlfriend's mother, who had no idea that this guy was plotting her death.

• 25:23Speaker 01

  So he wanted to take out his mother-in-law.

• 25:27Speaker 00

  His, yeah, who, the woman who would become his mother-in-law.

• 25:32Speaker 01

  Really?

• 25:35Speaker 00

  I mean, okay. Again, not a laughing matter, but.

• 25:39Speaker 01

  It's not.

• 25:39Speaker 00

  You know, how many guys have not at some point thought about it? I'm not saying I have, I love my mother-in-law.

• 25:46Speaker 01

  You do, yeah. There's, I'm sure there has been wives that have thought about what if their, their mother-in-law would.

• 25:57Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 25:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:59Speaker 00

  You know, hey, people don't always get along with their in-laws. That's, that's just.

• 26:04Speaker 01

  It's the mother-in-law gets the bad rap on both sides.

• 26:06Speaker 00

  Because there's a lot of mother-in-law jokes and, and things like that. But, but you know, are we seeing a pattern here? There's at least a couple of individuals we've talked about who have intellectual, you know, disabilities.

• 26:22Speaker 00

  Maybe that that played a role, but I mean, they still are trying to do something very criminal.

• 26:27Speaker 01

  They are, but I mean, you almost have to think that that's going to be the like, I don't want to say root cause, but you know, that's, that's one of the main reasons is because they, they do have that issue.

• 26:40Speaker 00

  It could be, I, I don't know. It also could be the reason why they think it's okay to try to hire a hitman on the, this website. That may have something to do with it. Between April and May, like I said, he, he did it a number of times, sent through these requests. He submitted three service requests on the site and he provided his own identifying information, details about his intended victim. He even included her address and some photographs.

• 27:13Speaker 01

  Okay. He was very detailed.

• 27:14Speaker 00

  Very detailed. In his first request on April 10th, he said he wanted to hurt his victim. He didn't say he wanted to kill, which is strange if you're on rentahitman.com.

• 27:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's like, what, did he get a little soft? Why he was typing this out? Like, maybe this is not killer. This, can you like bust a kneecap here, there or something?

• 27:36Speaker 00

  Or maybe because of some of his, you know, intellectual challenges, maybe he's grasping for the right word, you know? I don't know. But along with the photos of the victim and her address, he wrote, this is the target person. If you don't do it, I'll do it myself. I want her gone now. Too much that I don't like about her and she's controlling my wife. So, I mean, there's a couple of things there that make you think, I think if you're Bob, that this guy is serious. Cause I'm sure there was a bunch of stuff that he probably had to weed out over the years. Number one is

• 28:14Speaker 00

  what he sent that, that, you know, has to give you pause. And then secondly, if you don't do it, I'll do it myself.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:25Speaker 00

  You know, that's, that seems pretty serious to me. He referred to the victim's daughter as his wife, but they weren't married at the time. However, InvestGears did find a website on the knot showing they were engaged. The knot, K N O T.

• 28:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:41Speaker 00

  Never heard of that.

• 28:42Speaker 01

  Pretty popular site.

• 28:43Speaker 00

  Is it?

• 28:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:44Speaker 00

  Never heard of it.

• 28:45Speaker 01

  A lot of people that get married, go out there, register, put their wedding out there. And it kind of, I think it kind of walks them through of the whole event.

• 28:55Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 28:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:57Speaker 00

  Funny. Not funny, but interesting, I guess. You know, when I got married, the internet was barely a thing.

• 29:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 29:05Speaker 00

  It had literally been around for just a few years.

• 29:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:08Speaker 00

  That's how long I've been married.

• 29:10Speaker 01

  You, you had a better chance of just going out and getting married and to come back and the, the screen would still be loading.

• 29:15Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. Like a picture. If you wanted to download a picture, that's probably how long it would take.

• 29:19Speaker 01

  Took forever, man.

• 29:20Speaker 00

  That's the time to get married.

• 29:21Speaker 01

  Porn terror was terrible back then.

• 29:23Speaker 00

  He submitted additional requests on April 17th and April 20th, under different aliases, expressing his desire to have the victim killed. So again, I think the multiple requests.

• 29:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:37Speaker 00

  Has got to give you pause, especially, you know, if you're Bob and you're trying to weigh, you know, how serious are these things?

• 29:45Speaker 01

  Seems pretty serious.

• 29:46Speaker 00

  Yeah. I, I would say absolutely. As part of his requests, he wrote, "Kill that bitch and I fucking hate her so much. I want her gone now."

• 29:59Speaker 01

  Really angry.

• 30:00Speaker 00

  Yeah. He's really kind of expressing his level of hatred.

• 30:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:05Speaker 00

  Towards this woman.

• 30:07Speaker 01

  Kind of nervous with some of these emails that he gets, you know, as you're reading them. I mean, I, I think at first you're probably shaking your head like, what is wrong with these people? And then I think at one point you probably like, it's gotta make you kind of sick too. Like, this is the thought process, process that these folks have. They are being sincere.

• 30:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:30Speaker 01

  And.

• 30:31Speaker 00

  And they're serious about it.

• 30:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's alarming. Yeah.

• 30:34Speaker 00

  And the number.

• 30:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:36Speaker 00

  So at one point, it seems as though Hitman started to suspect that the site was fake.

• 30:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:43Speaker 00

  Which again, I don't know how somebody would, but on April 28th, you wrote, "You people are fake. If you were real, someone would have contacted me already. I can't wait anymore. I'm doing it my fucking self. Thank you for nothing, fake people." So again, he's getting tired of waiting. He's saying, he's not hinting, he's saying, "I'm going to do it myself." So, you know, Bob Ford's, his solicitations, all his email to local police, but he didn't get back a timely response, which resulted in the ATF's involvement, per the US Attorney's

• 31:26Speaker 00

  Office for the District of New Mexico. And I, you gotta wonder, if you're a police agency and you get forwarded this information, did they just think it was bogus?

• 31:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 31:39Speaker 00

  Cause I mean, some of this stuff sounds very serious.

• 31:41Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 31:42Speaker 00

  If you kind of take it in its entirety. So it's strange that they didn't do anything to it, or do anything with it. On May 5th, an undercover ATF agent contacted Hitman, writing, "Are you still interested in my services?"

• 31:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:57Speaker 00

  So it's, there's a pattern here, right? It's Bob's website. He's kind of monitoring the inbox. And again, like I said, I'm sure he's weeding out some of these and trying to gauge which ones are real and which ones aren't. But then, at some point, he has to forward this information on to the local authorities, or some authorities. Hitman responded by saying yes. And during a 16-minute recorded conversation, he said, "I hate her mom with a passion. She deserves to die." He said, "He wanted the victim gone off the earth." He also told this undercover agent, "That fucking bitch deserves to die."

• 32:39Speaker 01

  He really didn't like his future mother-in-law.

• 32:41Speaker 00

  No. And he's very loose with the F-word.

• 32:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:45Speaker 00

  You know, when he was informed that the fastest and cleanest way to carry out the murder would be with a gun, he responded by saying, "Yes, let's go for it."

• 32:56Speaker 01

  Let's do this thing.

• 32:57Speaker 00

  I mean, that's what somebody might say, you know, they're pitching you, maybe new windows or something. And you're like, okay, yeah, let's go for it. Let's do it.

• 33:06Speaker 01

  Let's do this thing.

• 33:07Speaker 00

  Not, "Do you want to have somebody murdered?"

• 33:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 33:11Speaker 00

  That seems like such a strange response. After learning that he would have to pay for the gun, Hitman explored other options, saying, "I have knives. I have a rock that you can smash her head with multiple times."

• 33:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, can use the rock because that way it doesn't cost me any money and...

• 33:32Speaker 00

  Well, first of all, how much is he thinking that this murder-for-hire is going to cost? If he's unwilling to shell out for a gun?

• 33:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:42Speaker 00

  You know, what are guns? They run anywhere from $200 at the cheapest, you know, obviously thousands and thousands, but most guns, entry-level guns are four or 500 bucks.

• 33:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean...

• 33:56Speaker 00

  I'm not saying that people should buy one for their hitman. I'm just saying, what was his budget for this operation?

• 34:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:04Speaker 00

  Is kind of what I was thinking.

• 34:06Speaker 01

  Sounds like he was pretty cheap.

• 34:08Speaker 00

  Well, to the, yeah, to the point where he's exploring other options, "I can give you a knife, or I have a rock." I don't think a lot of hitmans operate with rocks.

• 34:22Speaker 01

  But I need it back because it's my pet rock.

• 34:24Speaker 00

  It's my favorite rock, I guess. On May 9th, Hitman had another call with the agent, indicating his caretaker would also need to be harmed for him to leave home to attend the hit. So, what was really kind of unbelievable is that Hitman seemed to be under the impression that all of this was going to be free, which maybe explains why he was hesitant to come out for the gun.

• 34:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:54Speaker 00

  He didn't think he was gonna have to pay for this.

• 34:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 34:56Speaker 00

  But he eventually agreed to pay $200.

• 34:59Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 35:00Speaker 00

  For the murder.

• 35:01Speaker 01

  If I gotta pay, okay, I'll do the 200.

• 35:04Speaker 00

  First of all, who in the world believes that you're getting someone to murder someone for $200? Now, again, let's keep in mind, this guy has, you know, intellectual limitations.

• 35:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:19Speaker 00

  So, I mean, that plays a factor, but... He is still going through all these motions to hire a hitman.

• 35:26Speaker 01

  I mean, if the going rate was $200, it'd be unfortunately, I think.

• 35:32Speaker 00

  Be a lot of people killed.

• 35:33Speaker 01

  A lot of people killed.

• 35:34Speaker 00

  Um, because I do think the price and, and or the danger in trying to procure this type of operation is probably what keeps most people who want someone murdered from, from doing it. Or maybe they just want to do it themselves. I don't know. I don't know why people do what they do.

• 35:54Speaker 01

  I don't either.

• 35:55Speaker 00

  It's really hard to, to figure out. So Hitman told the agent he would ask his girlfriend to mail him the money, but he would have to lie about what it was for. And he would distract her, quote, "long enough for the job to be done."

• 36:11Speaker 01

  Now, I can't tell her that it's, it's for you to kill her mom. So I'm going to lie, but I'll get you the 200.

• 36:19Speaker 00

  Yeah. On May 11th, the undercover agent went to Hitman's residence to carry out the plan. Hitman emerged with his caretaker. He expressed that he wanted something done to the caretaker and stated to the agent, "This is part of the deal."

• 36:34Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 36:35Speaker 00

  And so Hitman and the caretaker get into it because the caretaker's standing right there. So they start shoving each other, which caused the agent to end the operation by driving away. I mean, it's just.

• 36:50Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 36:52Speaker 00

  Hitman ended up getting indicted by a federal grand jury on July 20th, 2022. And then on February 6th, 2024, Hitman pleaded guilty to one count of use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder to hire. On September 6th of that year, he was sentenced to the statutory maximum of 10 years in federal prison.

• 37:19Speaker 01

  Good place for him to go.

• 37:20Speaker 00

  Yeah. And I think we are kind of seeing like a, a pattern here in sentencing as well. Ten years, ten to twenty years, twenty with ten suspended, which comes out to be ten.

• 37:33Speaker 01

  That's pretty good math.

• 37:34Speaker 00

  There, yeah, it does. It's not bad. Mensa, right? But they're all similar so far that we've seen. Now, one of the most recent cases of someone attempting to use rent a hitman.com occurred in April 2023, when an Air National Guardsman in Tennessee was arrested on murder for higher charges. Twenty-one-year-old Josiah Garcia needed money to support his family. In mid-February 2023, he began searching online for contract mercenary jobs and found the website. So, he's going the other way, right? He doesn't want to have anybody killed.

• 38:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 38:15Speaker 00

  He needs extra money, but he's not gonna Uber or DoorDash.

• 38:20Speaker 01

  No.

• 38:21Speaker 00

  He wants to kill people.

• 38:23Speaker 01

  I want to make the big money quick.

• 38:24Speaker 00

  This reminds me very much of the, you know, pre-internet days where they had the, what was that, that magazine?

• 38:35Speaker 00

  Where they did the advertisements in the back.

• 38:38Speaker 01

  Or, uh.

• 38:39Speaker 00

  Soldier of Fortune. Yeah, you were on the right track. There was advertisements in the back. People advertising to do quote-unquote "contract work."

• 38:50Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 38:51Speaker 00

  Sometimes I think it was Hitman-type work.

• 38:54Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 38:55Speaker 00

  It just seems like there are so many ways to make extra money that, now, Hitman might be an easy one.

• 39:04Speaker 01

  Could be.

• 39:04Speaker 00

  If your conscience will allow for it. Mine wouldn't, obviously, and most people's wouldn't. But he found the website and on February 16th, he submitted an employment inquiry. Indicated he was interested in working as a hitman. He noted that he had military experience and rifle expertise.

• 39:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:28Speaker 00

  He's trying to get a job.

• 39:29Speaker 01

  Really good on my rifle.

• 39:31Speaker 00

  Yeah. The CEO of the company, and I say CEO in quotes because it's Bob in us, right? He responded on February 18th, asking for a resume, a headshot, and a photo of his ID, which Garcia provided.

• 39:46Speaker 01

  Just happy to get it over to you.

• 39:48Speaker 00

  Why do you need a headshot? Are you casting for a commercial?

• 39:54Speaker 00

  Garcia's resume indicated that he was an expert marksman and had been employed in the Air National Guard since July 2021. He wrote to the website again on February 20th. He said, "I'm looking for a job that pays well, related to my military experience, shooting and killing the marked target," he put that in parentheses, "so I can support my kid on the way. What can I say? I enjoy doing what I do. So if I can find a job that is similar to it, such as this one, put me in, coach."

• 40:28Speaker 01

  Put me in, coach. I'm ready to play.

• 40:31Speaker 00

  Oh, my gosh. Again, we've talked about it so many times on this podcast, but to try to get into the minds of some of these people. Now, normally, we're getting into the minds of killers.

• 40:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:45Speaker 00

  But this guy wants to kill. He wants to be paid to kill. So to me, it's equally fascinating. What is this guy thinking?

• 40:54Speaker 01

  I'd want to run him through like a series of three interviews, really see how far he's willing to go, you know?

• 41:03Speaker 00

  Well, he continued to send messages to the site before the owner responded at the direction of the FBI, informing him that a field coordinator would be in touch.

• 41:16Speaker 01

  Oh, I might get this thing.

• 41:18Speaker 00

  Well, you know, everybody watching, listening, you know, kind of remembers what it's like, you know, applying for jobs back in the day. And many people might be applying now, but that waiting.

• 41:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:32Speaker 00

  You know, are they going to respond? Is it going to be favorable? Well, he gets a response that probably, I guess, to him has to be exciting. He's going to be meeting with a field coordinator.

• 41:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, things are happening.

• 41:49Speaker 00

  He, uh, he kept following up with the administrator, which obviously, again, is Bob. It's all Bob. Um, just kind of saying how much he wanted to get. Going as quickly as possible.

• 42:03Speaker 01

  Really excited for this opportunity.

• 42:05Speaker 00

  He spoke to undercover FBI agents over the phone in early April. Garcia was told that speaking to the company wasn't a crime, but carrying out the work was. He said he was aware that working as a hitman was a crime, but he asked how soon he could start and what the pay was.

• 42:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:25Speaker 00

  So they're, they're literally coming out and saying, so far you technically have not committed a crime. Cause you just talked to this company. Now they're not saying it in these words, but he's not getting it.

• 42:38Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 42:39Speaker 00

  He's like, yeah, I know it's a crime.

• 42:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm ready to start.

• 42:42Speaker 00

  And I'm okay with it.

• 42:43Speaker 01

  Just tell me how much.

• 42:44Speaker 00

  He reportedly said that he preferred it, preferred to shoot people from distance and added that if it's possible and in his means to do so, he would be comfortable torturing victims. Or taking trophies such as ears or fingers.

• 43:00Speaker 01

  Okay. So he's willing to ramp it up, you know, if the price was right.

• 43:05Speaker 00

  I, I guess. I mean, it's all about the money. But I also get the sense, Gibbs, that maybe there's a little bit of enjoyment. I think this guy's a sadist.

• 43:15Speaker 01

  Sounds like it.

• 43:16Speaker 00

  Or maybe he hasn't done it, but really wants to.

• 43:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:21Speaker 00

  Which is scary.

• 43:23Speaker 01

  It sounds like if he did do it, and if he really liked it, he might've just continued doing it for free.

• 43:28Speaker 00

  Possibly.

• 43:29Speaker 01

  Away from this site.

• 43:31Speaker 00

  Garcia said civilian law enforcement wasn't for him, explaining, I wanted something more exciting. I started searching the web and then I found this. So here I am. He met with an undercover agent at a bar in Nashville on April 6th. During that conversation, the agent told Garcia, he could walk away at any time. Garcia responded by saying, I've been looking into this for some time now. I was looking for a way to make good money. It's like they just keep giving him chances.

• 44:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:01Speaker 00

  To figure out that what you're doing is not right, walk away.

• 44:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:07Speaker 00

  And he's just not doing it. Again, he wanted to know what the pay was and when he could get started. He's like chomping at the bit.

• 44:15Speaker 01

  I need the money.

• 44:16Speaker 00

  On April 12th, Garcia met with an undercover agent at a park in Hendersonville to accept his first job.

• 44:25Speaker 00

  The agent gave him a target packet of a fictional person, which included photos and other information about the individual and a down payment of $2,500. Garcia believed he was going to kill a husband who abused his wife. So he agreed to the terms of the arrangement and asked the agent if he needed to provide a photo of a dead body, and that's when he was arrested. So he took the money.

• 44:54Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 44:54Speaker 00

  He agreed that he was going to do it and even said, hey, do you need a photo of the dead body?

• 45:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. How do I get, how do I get your confirmation?

• 45:03Speaker 00

  After he was arrested, Garcia said he was looking for work because his family was struggling to pay rent. He noted that he was hired by a cleaning company on April 7th and was supposed to start training on the 10th. He claimed he only met with the agent to tell them that he changed his mind. He was going to tell the officer this when he got back into his car and was planning on leaving the money on the curb for the field officer to retrieve.

• 45:30Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 45:32Speaker 00

  Because you got to get out of it somehow, right? You got to make something up at this point.

• 45:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. I didn't really want to do it. I didn't want that money. I was going to leave it on the curb. I mean, I swear, I promise.

• 45:42Speaker 00

  On September 25th, 2025, Josiah, Josiah?

• 45:48Speaker 01

  Josiah.

• 45:49Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 45:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:50Speaker 00

  For some reason, I thought I needed to switch that to Hosea, which no, no. Garcia pleaded guilty to using interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder for hire.

• 46:02Speaker 01

  There's that inter interstate.

• 46:04Speaker 00

  They always get you with the interstate.

• 46:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:06Speaker 00

  That was, that's part of it, you know, right? He was later sentenced to five years of probation and I get it. Maybe this is not to the same level of these other people who are trying to hire a hitman, but it's, it's pretty bad.

• 46:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:25Speaker 00

  Honestly, if you look at it, now he didn't carry it out, but he accepted money and said, at least verbally said, agreed that he would kill somebody for that money.

• 46:40Speaker 00

  I can make an argument that five years of probation is a little light, but.

• 46:44Speaker 01

  Well, at the same time, they hired him to work for the CIA.

• 46:46Speaker 00

  Probably.

• 46:49Speaker 00

  So he's on probation, but.

• 46:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:52Speaker 00

  To this very day, rent a hitman remains up and running. You can go out there, you can look at it. I don't recommend submitting anything.

• 47:01Speaker 01

  Wouldn't either, you know?

• 47:03Speaker 00

  Back in 2018, Ennis told SFF Gate, the words are not coming out.

• 47:09Speaker 01

  It is.

• 47:10Speaker 00

  SF Gate. I added something to it.

• 47:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:13Speaker 00

  That after operating the site for almost a decade, he was running out of energy. And I could completely understand that. You know, you and I have been doing this podcast for a decade. I love it. I wouldn't want to do anything else, but it is very time consuming. And sometimes it's very energy draining.

• 47:33Speaker 01

  Can be.

• 47:34Speaker 00

  And this is not even a job to him.

• 47:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:38Speaker 00

  This is kind of a side gig where he's not making any money. He's literally trying to prevent people from being killed.

• 47:49Speaker 01

  You know, it's, it's, it's gotta be some pressure.

• 47:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:53Speaker 01

  Because now you have this information and if the authorities don't act on it, you still know about it.

• 48:00Speaker 00

  Or what if you don't do, what if you don't check the, the emails in time?

• 48:05Speaker 01

  What if you don't do that?

• 48:06Speaker 00

  And you later find out that somebody is killed. And that's what I talked about the weight. You're saying pressure, weight. To me, all, you know, all of it. That's a, it's, it's a lot to put on a person.

• 48:19Speaker 01

  It is. And you also have to think, so what if I discount this one? And something ends up happening. Now, if I go back and I find that out, I'm going to feel terrible.

• 48:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:32Speaker 01

  Or.

• 48:32Speaker 00

  Be a lot of guilt.

• 48:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. Or some, you know, is there any liability or two? You know, that I discounted, but they actually were going to do it. And somehow the guy's like, well, I did go out to that. You know, rent a hitman.com, but they never got back.

• 48:45Speaker 00

  But I think all of that would go in, into him saying he's running out of energy because.

• 48:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:50Speaker 00

  It's a lot. It's not just the work, but the weight and the pressure and all that. He said though, he, he wasn't sure what to do with the site. Multiple agencies, including the FBI. They didn't accept his offer to turn over the domain to their jurisdiction.

• 49:07Speaker 01

  I don't know if they could. It would almost be like they're baiting.

• 49:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, I could. I could understand that. I can understand that. He said, the simple fact that it has saved lives. Well, I have to keep it going.

• 49:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:20Speaker 00

  Until I figure out what to do with it.

• 49:22Speaker 01

  Crime stoppers would take it.

• 49:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't know. He said that he receives about eight to 10 inquiries a month from people looking to harm others or themselves. Some people have inquired about having a hitman kill them.

• 49:41Speaker 01

  For the insurance.

• 49:42Speaker 00

  Possibly, or possibly to end their life. They wanted to do it, but

• 49:49Speaker 01

  They can't do it themselves, so they want somebody else to do it.

• 49:52Speaker 00

  They can't do it legally, or like you said, maybe they have to, you know, have to worry about insurance money or something like that.

• 50:02Speaker 00

  And this guy has said, you know, hey, I'm not a crisis counselor. And it's difficult for him to find solutions and resources for many people who reach out. The other thing that amazes me is, you know, he pays for it. Now, he does accept donations to cover the cost, but he pays for everything out of his own pocket.

• 50:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it, you know, when you have a website that has a lot of hits, a lot of traffic, it's not cheap.

• 50:32Speaker 00

  No, the more traffic, the more it costs to host usually. In 2021, The Guardian asked if he worried that he was setting people up by keeping the site going. He responded by saying, this is a stupid question. The site is not a ploy to lure or dupe people who want to have others killed. These people searched the internet to contact a hitman. They just happened to kind of land on his side.

• 51:00Speaker 00

  He added that the site is not advertised anywhere and he gives people a 24 hour cooling off period to ascertain whether they are serious.

• 51:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:11Speaker 00

  He explained, I'll ask two simple questions. Do you still require our services? And would you like me to place you in contact with a field operative for a free consultation? Again, it's like buying windows or something, or you know, some kind of home improvement. Now, if they don't respond, he gives them a free pass.

• 51:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 51:33Speaker 00

  He doesn't turn their information over. If they do though, in his words, it's game on.

• 51:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, he gave them the opportunity.

• 51:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:41Speaker 01

  They decided not to take it.

• 51:43Speaker 00

  He told the Guardian, as long as these emails keep coming in, I will continue to act. So far, he believes nearly 150 lives have been saved as a direct result of the site and his actions.

• 51:56Speaker 01

  It's gotta make you feel good about that piece.

• 51:59Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, rewarding, but again, you gotta balance that with the pressure. I don't think the money is probably as big a deal, but the pressure of, gosh, I gotta check these emails because who knows what's going to be in there? And how do I make the decision of what to pass on, what not to pass on? Maybe it's as simple as, you know, if they answer those two questions, their information, it goes. And then whatever authorities want to do with it, then he's done his part, I guess.

• 52:31Speaker 01

  I just feel like there's a potential movie in the making here with like, maybe Steve Carell playing him. You know?

• 52:36Speaker 00

  Maybe.

• 52:37Speaker 01

  Could be kinda interesting.

• 52:38Speaker 00

  Cause Steve Carell does serious stuff well, too.

• 52:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:41Speaker 00

  He actually does.

• 52:41Speaker 01

  He does.

• 52:43Speaker 00

  I just thought it was such kind of a strange, wacky story. Nobody dies.

• 52:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:51Speaker 00

  Which is different for us and, you know, as far as a TCAT, we've done a couple, but it's out of the norm. But to me, it goes to kind of that mental or mindset, trying to jump into these people's ways of thinking of, I'm going to hire someone to kill someone to take care of my problem or problems. And, um, you know, that's just the thought that has always kind of fascinated me because I don't understand it. I really don't and never will.

• 53:24Speaker 01

  It is a true crime if it's our bucket.

• 53:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's true crime. Absolutely.

• 53:29Speaker 00

  But that's it for our episode on Rent a Hitman. You got anything you want to talk about, Gibbs, as we wrap up?

• 53:36Speaker 01

  I feel like maybe I need to take a few of my sites down, though.

• 53:39Speaker 00

  You probably should.

• 53:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, you're you're on that razor's edge, kind of operating in that gray area. I mean, you do do a lot of gray man stuff.

• 53:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, Rex West does, but yeah.

• 53:51Speaker 00

  Rex West does, which I've cautioned you against, but that's it for another episode of True Crime All The Time. So for Mike.

• 53:58Speaker 01

  And Gibby.

• 53:59Speaker 00

  Stay safe and keep your own time ticking.