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