A Woman Used RentAHitman.Com to Try to Kill Her Ex-Husband

The very actual RentAHitman.com website asks guests a easy query: “Got a problem that needs resolving?” Although the vast majority of folks would acknowledge the web site for what it’s, a joke, there are remarkably nonetheless some that take it critically and submit a request for homicide. Wendy Wein, a 52-year-old Michigan lady, is a type of folks.

Wein just lately discovered that whereas the RentAHitman.com could also be a joke, utilizing it to attempt to get another person to kill your ex-husband is just not, and carries real-world penalties. Earlier this month, she pleaded responsible to solicitation of homicide and utilizing a pc to commit a criminal offense. The former crime carries a most lifetime sentence, whereas the latter is capped at 20 years.

Under her plea settlement, Wein will serve a minimal of 9 years in jail. She can be sentenced by Daniel White, Monroe County’s thirty eighth Circuit Court Judge in Michigan, in January, in keeping with the Monroe News.

At first, Wein’s story appears like a comedy skit you would possibly see on Saturday Night Live. Laughter is changed with incredulity, the creeps, and just a little little bit of worry once you notice she really meant to hurt another person, although.

She began by filling out a “service request form”—which asks customers for primary info on themselves corresponding to identify, cellphone quantity, and e-mail in addition to info on who they need taken out—on RentAHitman.com in 2020 underneath a faux identify. RentAHitman.com is an easy web site with a easy design. It boasts of getting 17,985 area operatives all around the U.S. to assist prospects (which is definitely a reference to the tough variety of regulation enforcement entities within the nation) and claims it’s compliant with “Hitman Information Privacy & Protection Act of 1964” (sure, that’s faux).

RentAHitman.com additionally consists of glad buyer “testimonials” (that are clearly faux). If you scroll down sufficient, you’ll be able to even see this phrase within the web site’s footer: “Due to contractual restrictions, Rent-A-Hitman is no longer affiliated with Diners Club, Kanye West, the Illuminati, Rudolph Giuliani, Alec Baldwin or Kyle Rittenhouse.”

Despite all of this, there are some individuals who nonetheless assume RentAHitman.com is a reliable web site providing an actual service.

“I don’t get it,” Bob Innes, the proprietor of the joke website, instructed the Washington Post in a latest interview. “People are just stupid.”

In Wein’s case, she agreed to satisfy one of many web site’s “field operatives,” who was really an undercover police detective, to speak concerning the job she wished executed. The police had been contacted by Innes, who decided that Wein was an actual risk to others.

As instructed by the Post, Wein knowledgeable the police detective that her ex-husband was a pedophile and described him intimately, offering his dwelling handle, the time he went to work, and the time he acquired dwelling. She proceeded to provide the police detective a “down payment” of $200 for the homicide and agreed to provide him $5,000 when her husband was taken care of. Wein was arrested shortly afterward the encounter.

“She was hellbent on… seeking revenge to take out her ex-husband,” Innes mentioned, in keeping with the Post, “And she never did her homework.”

Innes didn’t got down to create a honeypot for catching individuals who wished to rent others to commit homicide. Originally, he arrange RentAHitman.com in 2005 to begin a cybersecurity firm with some associates after taking a community penetration testing and threat evaluation course, Rolling Stone reported final 12 months. That by no means panned out, and his efforts to promote to area identify by no means acquired any critical presents, so RentAHitman.com simply stayed on-line.

Years handed, and Innes determined to verify the location’s e-mail to scrub it up and see if there was in curiosity in shopping for the area. Instead, he discovered roughly 300 emails from folks all over the world searching for numerous providers, from utilizing RentAHitman.com to extort cash from others to asking how a lot he charged to hold out successful in Austria.

Innes began to work with regulation enforcement when he acquired an e-mail from a girl from the United Kingdom dwelling in Canada who wished three of her relations killed as a result of she claimed that they had left her with out an inheritance. The lady supplied loads of particulars on the relations she wished killed, which alarmed Innes. He confirmed all the data she supplied after which acquired the data to the Canadian police, who discovered that the lady had excellent warrants for critical costs and extradited her to the U.Ok.

He’s gotten different critical requests which have led to arrests through the years. A Kansas lady wished to kill individuals who had been reportedly disparaging her in her small city and instructed him to make use of “guns, bombs or anything or any way to remove them.” The Kansas lady was discovered responsible of solicitation to commit homicide and was given three years of supervised probation, Innes mentioned.

Another case concerned a 20-year-old man from Virginia who wished his ex-girlfriend, her mom, and her stepfather murdered. He additionally requested Innes to kidnap her child and convey the child to him so he might begin a household with one other lady. The Virginia man pleaded guilty to solicitation of homicide and was sentenced to twenty years in jail, though he acquired 10 years of his sentence suspended. Overall, at the very least a dozen circumstances involving folks utilizing RentAHitman.com have led to arrest, in keeping with Rolling Stone.

Innes doesn’t meet his “potential customers” in particular person or agree on any set “fee” for the web site’s providers. Instead, he passes on info he identifies as troubling to the police, who’re those answerable for making contact with the person. More than 10 years after RentAHitman.com first helped police catch a felony, it’s nonetheless doing its job. That’s even supposing Innes doesn’t hold the web site’s true nature a secret and has executed a wide range of information interviews about it.

“It’s a crazy world,” Innes instructed the Post. “The Internet is obviously a dangerous place. And this website is a magnet for low-hanging fruit that are out there trying to harm other people.”