King of Wild Beasts

Rex Feral claims to be a hit man, who states, “If my advice and the proven methods in this book are followed, certainly no one will ever know.” But we found another story.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Who wrote the book head Man. I'm not at liberty
to disclose the author's name. That's Peter Lund, founder of
Paladin Press and publisher of Hitman, speaking with Mike Wallace
on sixty minutes back. Why not because the author asked

(00:25):
that we protect her privacy. It is a woman. It
is a woman. One afternoon this past February, I stepped
away from my desk for just a few minutes. By then,
I'd written who I believed to be Rex Ferrell. I'd
emailed multiple times to several different email addresses, called a bunch,

(00:48):
tried a few family members, mailed certified letters. I even
wrote her on Pinterest, on Instagram and Facebook. But no
matter what I did, I didn't hear back. I mean,
I was only gone for a moment. It was nothing,
no time at all. But when I returned there was
a missed call from one of the numbers I tried,

(01:09):
and there was a voicemail, a long one. I was excited,
kind of felt like I was gonna puke. I wasn't
entirely sure what I was gonna say, but I hope
to have a chance to tell her what kind of
journalists I am that I'm not looking for some kind
of gotcha moment that I had no interest in doxing
her or pursuing some kind of moral reckoning. I just
want to know what happened, what was her story? And

(01:31):
then I held the phone up to my ear and
pressed play. Ye, nothing, just some background noises. I listened

(01:53):
to it three times, hoping I had missed her message,
like maybe it was just at the very end or
really quiet. No, this was clearly a missdial. Now when
I try that number, it goes straight to voicemail. I
hope she's listening to this right now. It eventually calls
me again. She's got my number from my Heart radio

(02:33):
and hit Home Media. I'm Jasmine Morris. This is Hitman.

(02:57):
On the very last page of Hitman, Reck Ferrell boasts someday,
when you've done and seen it all, when there doesn't
seem to be any challenge left or any new frontier
left to conquer, you might just feel cocky enough to
write a book about it. You might just feel cocky
enough to write a book about it. It's so obvious,

(03:20):
especially now that Rex Ferrell, this macho rogue Maverick, the
King of the Wild Beasts, was always just to put
on a persona. When I got ahold of the print
copy and thumbed through its pages, I was struck by
some of the photographs about halfway through, where Rex Ferrell
shows how to make a homemade silencer. These photos are

(03:42):
in black and white. They're super grainy and kind of
hard to see any real detail. But the person in
these photographs demonstrating how to make these d i y weapons.
They're only shown from the neck down, but as I
looked closely, it looks like they're wearing a woman's engagement ring.
And in the Homework and Surveillance chapter, one of the
centerpieces of this book is a ten page questionnaire which

(04:05):
the hitman is supposed to submit to the employer and
seeks detailed information on the source, background, habits, whether he
has guns in the house, burglar alarms, whether he knows
martial arts, schematic of surrounding houses and neighbors Tom Kelly,
Paladin's press lawyer. It says directions, please print plainly, answer

(04:30):
all questions as completely as possible. Use additional sheets of necessary,
supply all information available, even if not requested. No detail
is too small. This sounds a little bit more like
a college application than Hitman making a deal with an
employer really bordering on the absurd. There are hands drawn

(04:52):
diagrams in maps and a sample information sheet. These are
all drawn and written in a sort of flowery cursive.
So I knew it was all fake, but that didn't
make my job any easier. How do you find someone
who wrote under a pen name, someone who might not
want to be found? I scoured message boards, Amazon reviews,

(05:13):
comments sections, hoping for some kind of bread crumb that
would lead me to this person. Nothing. I asked the
same question over and over. Yeah, I was gonna ask
you about this author? What do you know about the
anonymous office you just mentioned the What did you know
about the author of the book? So? Who was the
actual author? Do you ever know anything about the author
of the book. My good friend, investigative journalist Andrew Goldberg,

(05:37):
offered his help. He tracked down some court documents and
dockets and handed me a stack of paper with every
woman's name circled. I asked Howard Siegel why they never
looked into the author? Why didn't her name come out
in the lawsuit? He said, quote, we simply didn't need her.
There was no possible upside. What was she going to
say that she was trying to help would be murderers,

(05:59):
of course not she was going to tow the party
line and say she was just kidding or providing information.
Never bring a witness in who can't add to your case.
When you have them, buy the balls, you don't let
go to see if you can get a better grip.
The question is why didn't they depose or subpoena her,
meaning Paladin Press. So I asked Paladin's lawyer. He confirmed

(06:20):
what Lund had said on sixty minutes. The author chose
to be anonymous, a right protected by the First Amendment.
In Paladin agreed. Paladin deemed itself obliged to keep that
implied pledge of confidentiality, just as you would a news
source grasping for leeds. I remember these two amazing private

(06:44):
detectives I'd interviewed years prior for another radio piece, legit
sleuths who were also married to each other, Um Collin Collins,
I own North Dinder Investigations. My favorite operative's Sean Kaufman.
My name is Kaufman, and I'm a licensed private investigator
in the state of Colorado, and that opens the gate

(07:05):
to many mysteries. Colleen later named a character in one
of her romance novels After Me. That's another story. I
see Colleen Man tell you what, don't get on her
bad side, dude, don't make her look for you because
palso wham bam, she will find you, and then she'll

(07:26):
send me out to serve you. I did find someone
a c I A one what. So when I got
this person on the phone, the first thing I said
was how did you find me? Wow? What did you say?
I said, Well, I just want you to know it
wasn't easy. She said, that's because I'm in the CIA,
So finding people is what Colleen and Shawn do, which

(07:46):
is why. Back in two thousand fifteen, I emailed Colleen
with everything I knew about Rex Ferrell and told her
the entire story about this Hitman book, The Trible Murder
Paladin Press. To my surprise, she'd actually visited Paladin. You're ago.
I wrote a fiction novel which was really really bad,
because everybody's first books usually are really bad, and they

(08:07):
had a serial killer in it and guns and all
kinds of things. So I thought, gosh, there's that soldier
of Fortune magazine here in town. And yet palat impressed
or something I should call them, you know, because I
want to talk about guns and killings and stuff. She said,
it was a rather memorable experience. I mean, of course

(08:28):
it was. But was stunning to me was when I
got there there was all this security. I remember thinking, well,
this is really weird, you know, and there was a
camera and bars and this is fine. I was in
this portal and the door was locked, and this man's

(08:48):
voice said, is that you calling for the appointment? And
I said yes, I remember. He took me back to
a room and there was the desk in the place
was actually pretty bare. Its step for dozens and dozens
of boxes. She said she couldn't remember if it was
actually soldier of Fortune or paladin, but she told me
whoever she talked to pulled a gun out of his desk.

(09:11):
Sounds familiar, and so I interviewed him about guns. Well,
I didn't have a lot of friends. I was pretty
new and Boulder, so nobody told me that they were strange,
you know. And I really the first thing I do
when I go to a new town find find me
the right wing. Hey, everybody here know where I gets
a good hollow tips ammunition. I had no idea I

(09:33):
was like clueless. I probably would wearing a nice little
suit with heels. You know. Back in two thousand fifteen,
Colleen told me quote pseudonyms can be difficult to track
down depends on what other information you have. For example,
do you have a birth date or even a year
of birth, or even a range of age such as
thirty to thirty five years old, any family member or

(09:55):
spouse names. No, At the time, I had none of this.
Nothing is impossible, she said, until one learns it's really impossible. Gosh,
I think you just first said you were doing research
on someone called rex Ferrell. Give corrects me up that
name whenever it's spare time. I was like digging another
rabbit hole going. I would find more and more information,

(10:18):
and a lot you had already found two, you know.
I was exchanging notes with you about Okay, I found this, Yeah,
I read that too. What did you see this? We
were doing that back and forth, and then I found
the piece that you hadn't found yet, and it was
what opened the door. Well do you trying to speak
to the Rex Ferrell? There were so many dead ends

(10:42):
along the way. I'd learned something that would turn out
to be completely wrong, and I'd find myself going in
a totally different direction. At one point, I thought the
real Rex Ferrell was a real estate agent in Miami.
She was connected to a man who will We'll get
into that later. Anyway, I sent off a few emails
and I hoped for the best. I never heard back,
and after looking into this woman further, I started to

(11:04):
have my doubts. The age didn't quite line up. It
just didn't feel right. But this piece that Colleen found
led me to someone who claimed to be a friend
of Rex Ferrell's and author herself, Karen Abbott. She once
quoted an email from Rex publicly, I don't want to
be a hero, tragic or otherwise. Rex supposedly wrote, I

(11:26):
just want to sit in my rocker on my front
porch and tell my grandson's stories. They're certain are fantastic lies. Ultimately,
Abbott didn't want to talk to me without Rex's permission,
which she never got as far as I know, so
she declined to participate in this podcast. It was frustrating,
but I understand. I'm protective of anyone who shares their

(11:48):
story with me too. Either way, I felt like I
was getting closer, but then at the beginning of this year,
I made a few more phone calls, talked to a
bunch of people, and literally stumbled into this conversation. I'm
not going to give away my source, but I'll play
you my responses. They asked me if I wanted to

(12:10):
know who actually wrote hit Man, we do? That would
be so helpful. You're kidding me. I finally knew her name. Wow, yeah,
because she's I mean, she's been protected, her nance to
redacted and everything. Wow. I've been wrong, so wrong. My

(12:31):
jaws on the ground right now. I've been looking for
this for a year. I mean really, it's been years,
one concentrated year of looking. But suddenly there it was
a bunch of letters on a pad of paper that
I scribbled down into a name, the name. We'll be

(12:52):
right back. Women are highly emotional, rarely rational creatures. One

(13:18):
of the first things that jumped out to me when
reading Hitman was the way Rex talked about women, or
has he put it the h M i W, which
stands for Hitman's ideal woman. The book's misogyny is unsettling.
Take chapter eight, danger ego women in partners because of

(13:40):
their uncanny ability to get into places and situations a
man might find hard to duplicate because of their deceitful
game playing natures, and because a woman can be twice
as vicious as a man, a woman could be a
better hired executioner than a man. We had an actor
read some lines for Only for the World. A woman

(14:01):
usually makes only one man her target, and the nesting
instinct quickly takes her off the street and ties her
down to the little world of babies and laundry and
house work she creates and protects for her own. And
then there's the part where Rex Ferrell advises his reader
on avoiding quote woman problems. He writes, once a woman

(14:21):
becomes the proclaimed property of one man, she feels it
her duty to ward off other predators, whether real or imaginary,
through suspicion, jealousy, accusation, or even by becoming her own detective,
to protect and preserve her rightful place. This book has
been linked to the deaths of two women and the

(14:42):
attempted murder of another, and what happened to them is
a familiar, terrifying and infuriating story. Women killed at home,
at work in a car by their husband's ex husband's boyfriends, neighbors,
in this book, women are property. They serve at one purpose,
to serve their man, and if they don't, they should

(15:05):
be properly done away with. She will have to be
a very understanding woman, for if she knows too much,
she could become a hitman's worst enemy on the face
of the earth, and may someday have to be eliminated
in the name of self preservation. Eliminated in the name
of self preservation. It's like that Margaret Atwood quote. Men

(15:29):
are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are
afraid that men will kill them. The woman who wrote
that book, if she needed the money, I mean, you
can always choose to do something else. I mean, if
you're that good of a writer, writes something else. That's
Tiffany Horn Millie's daughter, Trevor's sister. When the family sued Paladin.

(15:53):
Tiffany was a young mom. She was just trying to
live a normal life, which she told me was a
struggle at the time given what happened to her family.
So she didn't have a ton to say about Paladin
or the author when I asked her, But in caring
about her story just propelled me to keep looking for answers.
She remembers first hearing about the Hitman book leading up
to the criminal trials before her dad, Lawrence Horn, and

(16:16):
the hitman he hired, James Perry, were convicted. We found
out that the book was actually written by a single mom. Like,
how crazy is that? That was hard to wrap my
head around. I didn't even think about that, like a
mom actually like help kill him, because I mean those
were her words. She wrote that book, and it's not
just a fantasy. I know they said that, but I

(16:38):
don't believe that because it was really explicit. I mean,
did she strike you as a hit man? Oh no, no,
but again you know, very limited telephone type contact. No,
that's Don Corson. Remember he represented the plaintiff and the
second time Hitman was found to be used in this case,
in an attempted murder. He remembers speaking with the real

(17:01):
rex Ferrell once as he built his case. The impression
we got she was a grandmother and an author and
she was doing this for money. Rex Ferrell won't confirm
her identity. Paladin's closed now and their press lawyer won't
confirm it. But my best available information tells me I'm right,
And as far as I can tell, the real rex
Ferrell is now a grandmother in her seventies. She has

(17:24):
a social media presence and some of her posts are public.
I shouldn't be surprised by anything anymore. But she's not
at all what I pictured, not from what you'd imagine
from everything we've heard about the typical Paladin writer. She's
shared liberal memes about immigration, privilege in women's rights, and
she's really funny. I came across a few videos of her.

(17:47):
Her hair is white for the most part, she has
green eyes, and she's beautiful. In one of these videos,
she's singing, laughing, and wearing a sweater that says Grandma
on it. She has a slight Southern acts in and
yet it's hard to imagine this is the same person
who told their readers the kill is the easiest part

(18:07):
of the job. People kill one another every day. It
takes no great effort to pull a trigger or plunge
a knife. Is being able to do so in a
manner that will not link yourself or your employer to
the crime. That makes you a professional and the acceptance
of the valuelessness of life has given your own life value.

(18:32):
Regardless of whether Rex Ferrell ever decides to tell me
her story. Case files from the two lawsuits filed against
Paladin gives some insight into how this book was written
and given everything we know now well, she submitted her
first manuscript to Paladin Press with the attached letter dated
November that reads, Dear Sirs, enclosed is my manuscript entitled Hitman,

(18:59):
a tech call Handbook. And because we've now shared Rex
was a woman, we got a different actor to read
Rex's correspondence. This book is written in first person, but
a fictional professional hit man, Finnie Finnigan. The third chapters
contained many references to books I and my friends have
purchased from your fine library. This letter in manuscript landed

(19:24):
on Virginia Thomas's desk, who was an editor at Paladin
at the time. I reached out to her for this
podcast and didn't hear back. But that's okay. There are
court documents again, Attorney Don Corson, I remember we took
miss Thomas's deposition or testimony in Bomby's case. I was
able to get a transcript of that deposition. Most of

(19:44):
Thomas's answers are I don't know or I don't recall.
I mean she was deposed something like eighteen years later,
but don has her read some of her correspondence with
rex Ferrell. Thomas says, after reading rex Ferrell's manuscript, she
rejected it and sent the author a dated January four.
It reads, you will find your manuscript for Hitman a

(20:06):
technical handbook enclosed. Since we publish only nonfiction, we cannot
use this, and that's our producer, Michelle reading for Virginia.
Our readers are interested in the how to aspects of
survival weapons and military a thank you for allowing us
to consider your work. The idea is intriguing, as are
some of the tactics you suggest. Have you considered writing nonfiction?

(20:30):
The concluding sentence reads, good luck to you with this project.
Feel free to contact me with other ideas that might
fit our market. The original intention was quite a long
ways from what Plato turned it into. Rex Ferrell took
Thomas up on her suggestion and sent another proposal in
letter dated January enclosed. Please find the first two chapters

(20:56):
in an outline proposed which you suggested for my on
fiction rewrite hit Man a technical manual for the independent contractor.
According to court documents, about three weeks later, on February.
Thomas replies with this recommendation, make sure the material is

(21:17):
how to, since our readers buy books to learn, but
flush out the material with personal anecdotes as though you
were a working or retired hit man. People essentially like
to read about other people. Rex Ferrell writes back six
days later, the tone I am using is totally professional. However,
due to the serious nature of the book, I am

(21:39):
finding it hard to apply appropriate anecdotes. I do include
accounts of real hit men who have been apprehended by
the authorities, and I feel very satisfied that the finished
product will make us both Prior and Virginia. Thomas responds with,
as I told you in our tele phone conversation, we

(22:01):
received Hitman, and I am excited about it. I found
it most intriguing reading. Congratulations, you did what you set
out to do. I just want to underline what's happening here.
Rex Ferrell initially submitted a work of fiction, and at
Paladin Presses Encouragement or guidance, whatever you want to call it,

(22:21):
wrote an entirely new book other than you know, asking
rex Ferrell to change the format of the book. There
were some other changes. For example, apparently the original preface
to Hitman. Read this information and more will be made
available to enrich your fantasies and add spice to your

(22:42):
dreams of reasserting your status as the dominant sex of
the species who ruled with an iron will in the
days before overpopulation, mass production, and women's liberation. Ultimately, that
didn't make it into the book, and Rex Ferrell initially
had a different last name, one that wasn't working for Paladin.

(23:03):
Thomas writes, we must change the name Rex Savage to
something a little less stereotyped. However, Rex Savage, the publisher
suggests that you think of another name, possibly something that
sounds like a person who might belong to the mob,
although not too obviously. Then let's develop a persona for
the author for advertisements and future books. Write a personal

(23:25):
history for Mr X for that use. I am inclosing
your copy of the contract for hit Man signed by us.
There was a notation at the top right corner that
read five advanced paid. You will notice that we also
signed the paragraph on privacy that you added. She wrote.
That paragraph, apparently written by Rex Ferrell, said publisher agrees

(23:50):
to accept full financial and legal responsibility for any litigations
or censors that may arise out of this same ale
use or misuse of the contents of the contracted book. Furthermore,
publisher will, to the best of his ability, protect the
true identity of the author. I'm so fascinated by all

(24:16):
of this because these are her words, that's all I
have from her. And you have to wonder if her
book stayed the work of fiction she initially wrote, if
it never been turned into how To Manual, if any
of this would have ever happened. Paladin went on to
sell just over copies of hit Man, mostly via their
catalogs and eventually even through bookstores like Borders, Powell's Bookstore,

(24:40):
and Barnes and Noble, and then on March three, Millie
and Trevor Horn and Janie Saunders were murdered. The author,
who was just horrified that this has happened. I mean,
Stephen King was horrified when learned that one of his

(25:01):
books inspired a school shooting. I think that's a normal
human reaction. That's Tom Kelly, Paladin's lawyer. She's a decent
human being and wanted the book off the shelf. We
know the author was fearful of something like this, happening
based on her correspondence with Paladin as she was writing
this book, and once it did, she apparently tried to

(25:22):
do the right thing. Of course, her request was not honored.
Don Courson again, who represented the plaintiff and the second
hit Man lawsuit, and Paladin kept it on the market,
and their sales actually spiked because a lot of notoriety,
a lot of publicity about it. According to court documents,
sales of Hitman increased dramatically during the period after the
author asked that the manual be withdrawn due to the murders.

(25:45):
They made a conscious decision to continue selling the Hitman
book knowing and it had been used to murder people,
and it was a strategic choice in their part. In
other words, they knew what had been done, they knew
that the harm had been inflicted on humans, they knew
the author didn't want to They thought they're more likely
to win the case if they kept it on the market.
So that's how the book came to be, how it evolved,

(26:07):
and how she wanted to pull it after the murders.
But I still have so many questions. Should I even
be looking for this person? To someone who wrote under
a pen name, who obviously wanted to protect their identity
deserve to remain anonymous after something they created and put
out into the world actually hurt people. I don't know,

(26:28):
but if I could talk to Rex Ferrell, I think
the first thing I'd ask her is what do people
get wrong about you? Who was she then and who
is she today? I'd like to ask her the same
question I've asked so many others in this podcast. Is
there anything to be learned from all this? Until then,

(26:52):
all I have is this voicemail but us. When I
thought I'd reached the end of the Rex Feral journey,
and when I thought that I'd never really understand the
woman I saw on social media, the grandmother who apparently
feels strongly about women's rights, immigration, I found an arrest record.

(27:14):
The person who I believe to be the author had
been connected with an incident related to kidnapping, false imprisonment,
armed robbery, burglary, grand theft, and conspiracy. And what my
image of this person was about to do a whole
other one. Eight. Once again, I'd come across an entirely
different story, one that I never ever saw coming. I

(27:39):
looked into the man she was arrested in connection with
and every newspaper article or court record led to another
one and another one. I'm still finding them. This man,
he was a former police officer. He was a master
instructor in combat karate. This guy would become an FBI fugitive,

(28:02):
and one retired sergeant who encountered him told me he
is still suffering from PTSD from it. This guy used
a lot of pseudonyms, among them Rex Reid and Rex
James Rex so that macho rogue Maverick that Hitman is
based on. I was starting to realize maybe he did exist.

(28:23):
After all. People told us that Rex Reid was a
bad guy and that if anybody tried to mess with
them that you know, you guys will never take him alive,

(28:43):
and you know some officers might get hurt in the process.
That's next on hit Man. Hitman is a production of
I Heart Radio and hit Home Media. It's produced and
reported by Me Jasmine Morris. Our supervising producer is Michelle Lance.
Mark Flatto is our story consultant. Executive producers our main

(29:03):
guest Hat ticket Or and Me, mixing by Michelle Lance
and Josh Grogison. Our fact checker is not Sumi Ajisaka
voice acting by Levi Petrie and Kelly Jane Farnsworth. Special
thanks to Andrew Goldberg, our theme song by Alice McCoy,
and additional music written and produced by the students at
DIME powered by the Detroit Institute of Music Education,