August 15, 2019 • 31 mins
In 1983, the Colorado-based non-fiction publisher, Paladin Press, released a book called Hit Man: A Technical Manual for Independent Contractors. The author, who wrote under the pen name Rex Feral, offered very specific tips for the aspiring contract killer— where to find employment, how much to charge...and how to get away with it.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
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
(00:21):
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.
(00:43):
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
(01:06):
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
(01:26):
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.
(01:48):
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
(02:10):
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
(02:33):
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
(02:55):
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
(03:18):
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 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
(03:44):
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
(04:09):
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
(04:29):
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
(04:50):
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
(05:10):
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
(05:33):
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
(05:56):
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
(06:20):
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.
(06:45):
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
(07:09):
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,
(07:31):
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
(07:53):
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,
(08:17):
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
(08:38):
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
(09:03):
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
(09:24):
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
(09:45):
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
(10:06):
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.
(10:29):
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
(10:50):
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,
(11:11):
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
(11:32):
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
(11:53):
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
(12:13):
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
(12:34):
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.
(12:56):
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.
(13:18):
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
(13:40):
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
(14:04):
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,
(14:26):
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
(14:47):
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
(15:09):
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
(15:30):
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
(15:53):
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
(16:16):
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
(16:36):
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
(16:59):
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
(17:20):
completed his job. We'll be right back after a quick break.
(17:49):
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
(18:10):
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
(18:30):
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
(18:51):
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
(19:13):
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
(19:36):
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
(19:57):
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
(20:18):
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,
(20:40):
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,
(21:01):
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
(21:22):
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
(21:43):
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.
(22:04):
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
(22:26):
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
(22:48):
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.
(23:10):
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,
(23:34):
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.
(23:58):
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,
(24:21):
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.
(24:45):
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
(25:07):
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
(25:29):
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
(25:50):
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
(26:11):
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
(26:33):
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
(26:53):
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
(27:16):
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
(27:37):
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
(28:00):
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
(28:23):
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
(28:45):
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.
(29:06):
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
(29:26):
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,
(29:47):
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
(30:10):
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.
(30:49):
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,
(31:11):
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
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
(00:21):
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.
(00:43):
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
(01:06):
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
(01:26):
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.
(01:48):
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
(02:10):
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
(02:33):
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
(02:55):
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
(03:18):
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 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
(03:44):
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
(04:09):
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
(04:29):
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
(04:50):
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
(05:10):
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
(05:33):
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
(05:56):
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
(06:20):
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.
(06:45):
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
(07:09):
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,
(07:31):
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
(07:53):
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,
(08:17):
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
(08:38):
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
(09:03):
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
(09:24):
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
(09:45):
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
(10:06):
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.
(10:29):
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
(10:50):
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,
(11:11):
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
(11:32):
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
(11:53):
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
(12:13):
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
(12:34):
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.
(12:56):
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.
(13:18):
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
(13:40):
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
(14:04):
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,
(14:26):
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
(14:47):
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
(15:09):
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
(15:30):
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
(15:53):
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
(16:16):
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
(16:36):
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
(16:59):
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
(17:20):
completed his job. We'll be right back after a quick break.
(17:49):
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
(18:10):
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
(18:30):
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
(18:51):
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
(19:13):
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
(19:36):
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
(19:57):
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
(20:18):
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,
(20:40):
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,
(21:01):
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
(21:22):
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
(21:43):
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.
(22:04):
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
(22:26):
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
(22:48):
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.
(23:10):
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,
(23:34):
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.
(23:58):
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,
(24:21):
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.
(24:45):
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
(25:07):
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
(25:29):
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
(25:50):
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
(26:11):
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
(26:33):
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
(26:53):
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
(27:16):
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
(27:37):
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
(28:00):
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
(28:23):
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
(28:45):
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.
(29:06):
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
(29:26):
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,
(29:47):
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
(30:10):
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.
(30:49):
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,
(31:11):
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
Hit Man News
Host
Jasmyn Morris
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