The joke website RentAHitman.com, which has fielded hundreds of apparently serious murder-for-hire requests, has now snared a young National Guardsman who was an aspiring killer, federal prosecutors say.
The 21-year-old Tennessee man, a member of that state’s Air National Guard, allegedly sent a query to the website in February about possible employment as a killer, the U.S. Attorney’s office said.
In a follow-up email, he reportedly said: “Im looking for a job, that pays well, related to my military experience (Shooting and Killing the marked target) 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!”
The site’s creator passed the information on to the FBI, and federal agents took it from there.
The man was arrested on April 12 after meeting an undercover agent in a Hendersonville park and accepting a packet that included information about the fictional target — the purported client’s husband — and a down payment of half the $5,000 fee, the prosecutor’s press release said.
The charge, use of interstate facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire, carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.
RentAHitman.com was created in 2005 as a project for a class in cybersecurity. Its creator, Bob Innes, told Detroit TV station WJBK he left it live on the internet — and was shocked when he checked its inbox three years later and found hundreds of contacts from strangers wanting people killed. He now passes along such requests to law enforcement.
Last year, a Michigan woman was sentenced to prison after she submitted a “service request form” to the site asking that her ex-husband be killed. She agreed to pay $5,000 for the hit.
In sentencing Wendy Wein to seven to 20 years in prison, the judge said: “Nobody looking at it could have believed this website was real, but you did.”
RentAHitman.com includes testimonials from purported clients praising “Guido” for his “problem resolution” skills. Its list of available discounts mentions “group (3 or more), senior (65+), spring cleaning, Air National Guardsmen.”
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