Ghost Story - What to Listen to Next: Kill List

Episode Date: November 1, 2024

In the depths of the dark net, tech journalist Carl Miller makes a disturbing discovery: a secret Kill List targeting hundreds of innocent people on a murder for hire website. When the police decide not to investigate, Carl is thrown into a race against time to warn those in danger and uncover the truth about the people who want them dead. From Wondery and Novel, comes a true story about obsession, control and the price of life and death.Listen to Kill List on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Kill List early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+. Start your free trial by visiting wondery.app.link/UsXRGYjy4Nb , the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify today. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, Marshall Louie here. I am the Chief Content Officer at Wondery and a producer on Ghost Story. And on behalf of everyone who worked on this show, I want to thank you for listening to this series. We are so thrilled you've taken this crazy, thought-provoking journey of this show with us. And, you know, this is how we like to do things at Wondery. We believe that a podcast should do more than just tell a story. It should immerse you in it. Should grip you from that very first moment. Keep you on the edge of your seat until the final seconds.

And when it's over, you feel like you've gone somewhere, learned something. You've gone deeper into an understanding of the world. And we think about every detail of the story to make that happen. And this series, made with our partners at Pineapple Street Studios, is a perfect example of this. Now, we have another show that we would love to recommend to you if you liked Ghost Story. It's called Kill List. And like the series you just listened to, Kill List offers a gripping, edge-of-your-seat experience. But this time, the danger isn't supernatural.

It is a bit of a family drama, like Ghost Story, but in a very different way. It follows a journalist who uncovers a murder-for-hire site where people are taking out hits, often on their loved ones. And when one of those murders takes place, the journalist finds himself in a position where he needs to try and save lives, all while navigating a web of crime and danger that only gets more and more intense with each episode. It's the same meticulous attention to detail that made Ghost Story such an unforgettable experience, the atmosphere, the pacing, the tension, and I am quite certain that when you start Kill List, you will not be able to stop listening.

So if you loved the roller coaster ride of suspense and revelation that was Ghost Story, you are going to really like Kill List and we are excited to share episode one of this series with you. If you're ready to dive deeper, you can follow Kill List on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Karl here. I'm the presenter of the show. I just wanted to let you know that this episode contains references to suicide.

We've put some links with the resources in the episode notes in case you're affected by the things we talk about in the show. Everything was quiet when Detective Randy McAllister drove down the dark, tree-lined road to the old wine house. There aren't really any street lights for the most part, but I could see flashing emergency lights down the road. It was around 8 p.m. on November 13, 2016. McAllister pulled down the gravel drive. It was after harvest time and crops were turning brown in the fields. There were a lot of police cars there,

you know, a lot of police officers. I saw Stephen Arwine and his son standing out on the road. Detective McAllister approached the house, an open-plan, one-story building with solar panels on the roof. The door to the garage was open. A light from inside spilled out, casting shadows on the neatly cut grass. I went through the access door in the garage inside the house. As you step through that door, you're in a mud room, a couple of dog kennels there.

The first thing you noticed was the comforting smell of a suburban family home. There was a pumpkin being roasted in a big roaster on the countertop in the kitchen. It felt kind of warm and homey. There were pictures of the family on the walls in the living room. I just got a sense that this was a normal family and they seemed to love each other. They seemed to be very involved in each other's lives. Detective McAllister made his way down the hall

towards the master bedroom. He stepped through the doorway. He stepped through the doorway. There was a body on the floor next to the bed. It was Amy Allwine, Stephen's wife. In the crook of her left arm was a gun. It looked like a suicide, but Detective Nick Halister needed to be certain. He told one of the other officers on the scene to go and ask Stephen if Amy was right or left handed.

And he indicated that she was right handed, which would explain the wound in the right side of her head if it was suicide. Except the gun wasn't in her right hand. I've seen weapons in suicides do weird things and seemingly defy physics sometimes, but the gun was found on the left side of her body. That was enough to make Michaelis de Pauls. He taped off the scene, got a search warrant and called in a forensics team to come down

and take a look. just to be cautious. They sprayed the house down with luminol, a chemical that glows a pale blue in the presence of blood. When they luminoled the scene, there were bloody footprints throughout the house, from the master bedroom on back to the mudroom next to the garage. There was evidence of a large blood pool right outside the master bedroom. This is going to be a big case. Holy cow. Detective McAllister was right. It was going to be a big case.

Not just for him, but for me. Bigger than I ever could have imagined. What began there with Amy would catapult me into the darkest reaches of the internet. It would involve hundreds of murder plots across dozens of countries. A dark web cybercrime empire. The FBI. Interpol, and me and a small team of journalists, investigators and hackers having to make life and death decisions

we never thought would be in our hands. And it all centered around one document. The Kill List. Episode 1, The Hack. In June 2020, I was at home in my flat in West London, one of the places in the UK hit earliest and hardest by the pandemic. It was lockdown and outside the rows were silent apart from the sound of ambulances. Alright Chris, what's been going on? Way too much, way too much. Cascade of things. I was on a video call with a man called Chris Montero. Chris had a short beard and long

dark hair pulled back into a ponytail, greying a little of the temples. His pale face appeared almost white against the gloom of his flat and he looked at me with dark rings under into a ponytail, greying a little at the temples. His pale face appeared almost white against the gloom of his flat and he looked at me with dark rings under his eyes. He was nighty specialist by day but a hacker by night. Chris had called me and said we needed to speak urgently. Alright well Chris tell us about this case. One minute, one minute. I'm a technology researcher at a think tank and an author. I first met Chris while researching a book about how power is being transformed in the digital age.

Chris's work had fascinated me for a long time and I thought it might make a good podcast. At that time, my world revolved around writing and papers, talks, a bit of travel. It was comfortable, normal. But everything changed when my life collided with everything you're about to hear. And it all began with what Chris had to show me. A document filled with strange usernames and messages.

Chris was doing what he often did. Investigating the myths and rum rumors that swirl around about the darknet. He was looking as a hitman for higher websites, a place where people go to try and hire assassins. Chris was poking around, probing it, seeing what he could learn. And then he almost stumbled over something momentous, a vulnerability, a little opening in how the website worked. And he could squeeze through that gap and a little opening in how the website worked. And he could squeeze through that gap and into the back end of the website.

He could see what the administrators could see. And that included the kill orders that were being made. Every single one of them. Kill him and make it look like a car accident on the road. Right now, all over the world, there are hundreds of people going about their lives with no idea that somebody wants them dead. This person needs to go away, not only silenced, but disposed of without a trace, never to be found again. Someone in these people's lives, filled with hatred, jealousy or rage, has paid to have them killed.

Need target killed? Make look like an accident. Seeking house to be burned down with occupants inside. No survivors. Chris took me through the list. Along with the messages, there were names of what appeared to be real people being targeted. Photos, descriptions of their habits, their addresses. And one of the names on the list was Amy Allwine. Amy lived in a sleepy little Minneapolis suburb called Cottage Grove. It's the kind of place you'd move to to get away from the action. It's all green lawns and neat clapboard houses.

The highlight of the social calendar is the annual Strawberry Fest, with its grand parade, pet show and a strawberry pie-eating contest. It was late May 2016 when Amy Orwell's phone rang. Two police officers were outside her house, one from Cottage Grove Police Department, the other from the FBI. It was not a call Amy expected to receive. 43 years old, a mother and professional dog trainer, she and her husband Stephen were devoted churchgoers

who'd been together since they met in college. Run-ins with the law were not a part of her day-to-day life. Amy wasn't at home when the officers called, so she went down to the local police station the next day. When she arrived, an FBI agent sat her down in an interview room. They had something to tell her. Someone had made what they described as a death threat against her on the internet.

They asked Amy who she thought could be behind the threat. Amy didn't know. She couldn't think of a single enemy. At a loss, Amy gave the agents some names, friends, people she knew from her dog training business. And in the weeks after, the FBI did some searches on people's electronic devices. They asked questions.

Nothing. Amy and her husband installed a security alarm on their house. They bought a gun for protection and stored it in a cabinet by their house. They bought a gun for protection and stored it in a cabinet by their bed. Almost two months later, in late July, Amy received two strange emails. I am still watching you and your family. I expect to see your obituary in the paper in the next couple of weeks.

The emails told Amy to kill herself and threatened her friends and family if she didn't. She contacted the FBI. Whoever it was that had it in for her was still out there. According to the local police, the FBI told Amy that the emails actually seemed like a de-escalation compared to the threat they found online. They would keep investigating.

For a while, Amy didn't tell her family about the death threat. But holding it in was torture. Late one evening, that August, after Amy's son had gone to bed, she sat out on the deck with her sister Julie. The two of them had always been close. When Julie went to college, Amy wrote her a letter every single week so she wouldn't get homesick. Sitting in the warm night air, Amy's voice shook as she told Julie she feared that the

person who wanted her dead might hurt her family. How hard it had been to pass names to the FBI, possibly casting suspicion on innocent friends. She desperately wished that she could just apologize to whoever was behind the threat for whatever she had done to anger them. Then a few months later, on November 13th at 7 p.m., Minneapolis 911 dispatch received a call.

It's pretty distressing to listen to. 911, what's the address of the emergency? Hello? I think my wife shot herself. There's blood all over. Okay, what is your address, sir? It's Stephen Alwine, Amy's husband. He told the operator he'd come home to find his wife on the bedroom floor

with a gunshot wound to the head. Does she still have the gun, sir? Sir? Yes. Detective Randy McAllister had examined the scene and he wasn't sure this was a suicide. I mean at this point we know at least somebody cleaned up the scene. And there was another reason why Detective McAllister was suspicious.

Back in May he'd been contacted by the FBI who said they were looking into a threat against Amy. According to McAllister, the FBI had only told Cottage Grove police about a vague internet threat and asked for help making contact with Amy. They didn't provide any more details. Now he asked the FBI for any information they could give him about their investigation. When we finally got the reports was when we fully understood that, okay, somebody actually spent what we estimated to be $12,000 to $13,000 on Bitcoin to have her murdered. That's the first time we really truly understood that.

Sifting through the FBI reports, McAllister realized what this so-called internet threat had really been. Nine months earlier, someone had gone onto the darknet and paid for Amy to be murdered on the very Murder4Hire website that Chris Monteiro had broken into. They went by the username DogDayGod. I am looking to hire you for a hit. What is the price in Bitcoin for a hit and ideally making it look like an accident? The site administrator replied. Regarding the price, normal killing by gunshot is $5,000. That is 13 Bitcoin.

The killing by gunshot is the easiest and cheapest. Dog Day God uploaded a picture of Amy, a broad smile across her face as she leans against the railing of a ship. They gave her address and a detailed breakdown of her movements. The target will be travelling out of town to Moline, Illinois in March. On the 6th of March, Dog Day God made a payment of over $5,000 in Bitcoin to the assassins. For reasons that are too personal and would give away my identity, I need this bitch dead. So please help me.

Thanks. The FBI told Detective McAllister they'd found an internet threat. But this wasn't just a threat. Someone was planning Amy's murder in secret. Dog Day God spent weeks messaging the hitman for HireSight administrator, a shadowy figure who is often anonymous, but sometimes goes by the name Euror. They discussed the logistics of the killing, the price of the hit, the location, the best way to buy Bitcoin. But then, Dog Day God started getting frustrated.

queen. But then Dog Day God started getting frustrated. It does not look like anything has happened yet and I still have no evidence that she's even being tracked. Yura, the site administrator, replied. You're right. This has been dragging quite a long time and needs to be completed ASAP. I will explain a bit why this has been so chaotic, even if maybe you don't want to hear excuses. Eura offered a solution. We can assign a great team with experts that have military training

if you can add eight Bitcoin to your account. Dog Day God was willing to try again, but then. We are halfway through our current window and I have not heard anything yet. I just talked with her, which means that it is not done yet. Not good. Still no sign of a hitman. Just requested a resund. You guys have not been able to get this done. My gut feeling upon first looking at it was it was a scam.

Detective McAllister realized that the site's administrator had no intention of delivering on the hit. They were just taking the money and stringing Dog Day God along. But even if there were no hitmen, Dog Day God was clearly deadly serious. They wanted Amy dead and soon. Detective McAllister believed these messages could lead him to Amy's killer. Dog Day God had a lot of details that only somebody very close to Amy would have. Even down to the level of describing where Amy was traveling to. McAllister handed the order details to a computer forensics team.

While they worked on tracing the hit payment, McAllister dug into the people closest to Amy. He started with her husband, Stephen Alwine. Stephen was the one who had reported Amy's death to the police. They'd been married for 20 years. At the local church, Stephen was one of the respected elders. He gave sermons, held couples counselling, and even filmed dance tutorials for the church with Amy,

waltzing across their living room. After Amy's death, Stephen was staying with Amy's parents. But there were a few details that made Detective McAllister curious. Three days after Amy's death, Stephen was brought in for an interview at the police station. When he came in for the interview,

he came in with his attorney. Now, under our legal system in the US, that's perfectly acceptable, that's his right, but in my entire career, I've never had a loved one of a suicide victim talk to us with an attorney. During the interview, Stephen seemed distant, even a bit cold. That didn't prove anything. People can react in all sorts of ways to traumatic events. But Detective McAllister was looking for leads,

and his next stop was to get a warrant to search Stephen's phone and computers. Stephen had been messaging women on multiple dating websites. Ashley Madison was one of them, which is a well-known website for men to cheat on with other women. On his phone, the police found a strange contact. Specifically a female name and a phone number. No last name.

He apparently was having an affair with her. Stephen had even met up with women on trips he'd take to give sermons at churches out of state. You almost feel disappointed because on the one hand there's this perception that they're just a great family. Then you start realizing, okay, he's not so great. From those digital contacts, the next step for Andy McCannister was Stephen's finances. He had sold a bunch of silver bullion to a local pawn shop for cash. He immediately took cash from his second transaction, I think it was, at this pawn shop and purchased

Bitcoin in person from a private seller at a restaurant in Minneapolis. And it was only two days later that Dog Day God made a payment of $5,000 to the website for Amy's murder. I need this bitch dead. McAllister was building a case against Steven, but so far the evidence was mostly circumstantial. He needed hard proof. So far the evidence was mostly circumstantial. He needed hard proof.

On December 12th, 2016, McAllister got a phone call. It was from a detective from the digital forensics team who'd been looking into the order. He said, I found the Bitcoin address on Stephen Alwine's computer. The payment that had been made to the assassination site came from a Bitcoin wallet. And that wallet was linked to Stephen. That was as good as a fingerprint in my opinion, because you really can't recreate by chance a Bitcoin address. That was the best direct evidence we could have gotten.

Stephen was dog day god. In February of 2016, he signed up to the Hitman for Hire website and tried to place a hit on his wife. It looks like you'll be home tomorrow from 12 to 1pm, and Thursday from 12 to 1pm. Let me know the plan so I can be somewhere else public. In May, after four months of messaging on the site, Dog Day God goes silent.

Presumably, Stephen had given up on hiring a hitman. But then he popped up somewhere else. The police found posts from the same Dog Day God username on a different dark web forum, trying to buy an anti-nausea drug called scopolamine. An overdose of scopolamine can make you disorientated and compliant. When the police ran another autopsy, they found large quantities of the drug in Amy's blood and stomach. Detective McAllister now had enough information to act.

On January 17th, 2017, the Cottage Grove police pulled Stephen's car over at a traffic stop near his home and arrested him. Stephen was charged with first degree murder. Just over a year later, Stephen was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole. When I first heard about the kill list, the dangers seemed a bit unclear to me. After all, the Murder4Hire website was a scam. But Amy Allwine was targeted on that same website. Her death proved that the danger was real.

And not because some shadowy darknet hitman was on the way, but because the customers were the real threat. They could be as dangerous as any assassin. And what Chris was showing me were hundreds more names just like Amy's. Kill orders being requested right now. And now that I've seen inside this dark world, I need to decide what on earth to do next. When Chris first showed me the list, he showed me something else too.

A grainy mobile phone video. It begins in darkness. A shadowy figure appears holding a sign with Chris's username on it. Then, the sound of liquid being splashed around. And... Fucking hell. Flames engulf the screen. And that's the car being torched. Jesus Christ. It's like a white car that's now on fire. It's a raging fire. The camera shakily holds its gaze on the shell of a car, blazing.

Flames shoot up the windows, out the doors, over the hood. It's a fucking death threat. They're torching a car and sending it to you. For years, Chris has been publicly working to try and get the website taken down. In response, this video was sent to him by the person running the site, who goes by the name Yura. Chris took the video and all of his evidence to the UK police. After multiple attempts to report it, he finally managed to get through to some officers who seemed interested. But in the end, Chris says, the police told him they couldn't take his information

because it had been obtained via a hack. So he tried to work with US law enforcement instead. He'd made a contact at the Department of Homeland Security in America. So now, with more kill orders flooding in, he tried reaching out to them. So I send my contacts an email, I say, hey, going to send you data again. Reply, we are unable to take the data at this time due to lack of resourcing. The Department of Homeland Security was another dead end. Murder orders are piling up

and no one in law enforcement seems to be interested. So Chris has come to me. Since I'm a journalist and a writer who has worked with the police before, Chris thinks that I might be able to help raise the alarm. In terms of actions, this is what in the journalistic trade is known as a clear and present threat to life.

Which means that I need to work out what to do today. Like, we can't sit on this kind of information if you see what I mean. We're in the worst possible position I could think. Like, the world is on fire. We're in the middle of a global pandemic, meaning we can't leave our houses. We found ourselves in the middle of a global pandemic, meaning we can't leave our houses. We found ourselves in the middle of a live assassination market, and we don't even have any policy or moral guidance yet in terms of what we actually do. It's horrible.

I've never dealt with anything like this before, and I have no idea whether I can even help anyone. I am not a hardened crime journalist, nor am I drawn to adventure or risk. I can't even drive a car, honestly. But I can't step away knowing that what happened to Amy Orwine might repeat itself. I tell Chris to send me the list. Alright, you ready? Yep. It's a Thursday afternoon and I'm on a call with one of my producers.

The road outside my house is almost totally silent. On my computer I open Chris's document. Oh wow, there's a lot on here. Chris has run me through the orders, but this is the first time I've got my hands on the Kill List itself. It's a long spreadsheet of names, locations, telephone numbers. So how many do we have? It looks like there's 85 on this list. I scroll through the list. A man from the US, a woman from Russia.

Alongside each name, there are contact details, workplace addresses, details of their movements, and in most cases, there are photos. The photos are the thing that struck me first. A few dozen people staring out at you as you open this document. In one, a middle-aged man stands surrounded by his family. His light blue eyes twinkle with a deep and joyful pride. In another, a woman tilts her head as she smiles shyly

at the camera over rimless glasses. She's somewhere glitzy. She looks relaxed and happy. The thing that's so striking about these photos is that they look like they've all been taken from social media. They look like kind of mainly Facebook profiles. So they're the ones that you decide

to put on your profile picture. Yeah. They're nice photos. Yeah, and it's, I mean, it's just a photo, but they all just sort of have this, they just don't know. And this is just sort of looming over their head and they have no idea, you know.

Man, this is awful. This list looks like any other Excel spreadsheet. Synocuous. Boring, even. Until you read the instructions listed against each name. There's one fucking guy and I only have his name and the city he lives in. How can I hire a killer to kill him? How much bitcoin should I pay?

Tell me the execution time in advance. I can't be there. I would just like this person to be shot and killed where, how and what with does not bother me at all. I would just like this person dead. These are the messages written by whoever paid to have these people assassinated. Their specifications for the hit. Can you kidnap, silent, and erase without a trace? Kill a nurse in Taipei. I guess we don't know the backstory, but like a nurse? I want her to be killed.

It should seem she's dead because of an accident, not one murder. Kidnap family in Hong Kong. Can we save 15 Bitcoin for a hit with a car? And ensure fatality? Cunt mother needs to die. Someone wants to kill their mom. Kill an unidentified woman in Ottawa.

Kill a woman who permitted sexual abuse. Moscow. Weemen. 45 years old. Jesus, man, this is terrible. Just like, these are really possibly 85 really serious crimes just staring back at us. Yeah.

I mean, this is conspiracy to commit murder. I mean, this is conspiracy to commit murder. Ethically, this is the hardest thing to cover that I've ever tried to do. And for sure, I mean, this is a ethical bomb waiting to blow up in our faces if we don't do this correctly. Yeah, I don't know, man. It looks like a big Pandora's box that we're opening. And once you open it, it's open, man.

I don't think we can put it shut. The thought of what could go wrong if I meddle with this is terrifying. But so is the thought of what could happen if I do nothing. So I start with the obvious step. I'm quite nervous, honestly. Like, I wasn't able to sleep that well. I don't know why. It suddenly makes it a lot more real when it's just a spreadsheet at the moment and

it's about to turn into a crime. I'm about to phone the police and hand over my information. Chris might have struggled with law enforcement, but I've worked with the police before in my reporting and confident I can do better. After all, this is a credible threat. How hard can it be to get them to take it seriously? All right, should I just do it then?

The reason I'm calling is that I'm a journalist on a series to do with cybercrime. It's a bit of a long story. I'm on the phone to the police trying to find the words to explain what on earth it is that I'm doing. In our kind of investigation, we've encountered a series of possible crimes really so I'm just looking to disclose that. And you said you're a journalist? I'm a journalist yeah. And what's it investigating?

This is going to sound quite strange. It's an investigation into online assassination markets on the Darknet. I do my best to summarise how I ended up with a spreadsheet full of murder orders. I think this is going to be a bit complicated to report on the fine. I think maybe we'd be better to get officers to come and see you. Yeah, that's fine. At least the operator didn't think it was a prank. Alright, thank you.

Bye then. Thanks, bye bye. I hadn't expected officers to actually physically come around to my house, but it's a good sign that they're taking it seriously. From the early morning, I start obsessively peeking through my curtains, waiting for the police to arrive. And so, when they do, I watch them pull up. There's currently a police van just lingering outside my house.

I start recording on my phone as the two officers get out of their car. Hello. Hello. Sorry. I appreciate early in the morning. Are you OK to speak to us? I am, yes. Please come in. Thank you very much. The man and woman standing in front of me are the first strangers I've physically met in months. Both of them are young, still in their 20s. Actually seeing the police uniforms, the white shirts and black ties and shoes is making the situation feel really real. No, no, please take a seat. Okay, so it's a bit of a weird story and it's quite complicated

so it might need a number of interactions, yeah. Right, where to begin? So it's, we sit in my living room. One of the officers has a police radio, which crackles in the background, as I explain the situation and walk them through the cases with the biggest payment. One is the killer hospital worker in The Hague,

one is the killer man of Arkansas, one in Italy, and another one in the Czech Republic. So one of the problems of course is that these are so international. Are the names and addresses really just names? In most cases it's definitely like region and name. The police are polite, attentive. They interrupt a few times to ask for clarification and they gravely note everything down on those small notebooks you see on police dramas. There are no smirks or raised eyebrows, but I'm aware that the further I go into the story

the more utterly ridiculous the whole thing sounds. Darknet. Murder for hire. A hacker. Intercepted orders. Lives in danger. If I'm being honest, and don't take this the wrong way, I mean, we happen to be a big diligent when we get calls from the internet shop. We generally want to always see if you've got a history or a history of mental illness or things like that. History of mental illness. That's how mad it sounds, that like the furnace... So this is why they're here. To make sure I'm not crazy.

Yeah, so it is very unusual. A lot of the more unusual calls we get could potentially be more mental health related. I mean, for all it's worth, in my career as a journalist, this is the weirdest story I've ever had to deal with. The police say they'll follow up on the orders. I hand over printouts of the messages. Someone will be in touch in the next orbit. Amazing.

Whatever I can find out and actually tell you, I'll find. I really appreciate it, thank you. No, no, no, thank you. Thank you very much. I really appreciate it, thank you. No, no, no, thank you. Thank you very much. No worries, I'll forego the handshake given the corona, but thanks so much for coming over and seeing me today. Okay, well the police have just left.

I really hope that the first thing they'll do is to reach out to those victims named on the site They really really need to know this is happening Days pass and nothing. Bonus reward of 500 if target is eliminated within upcoming weekend. I follow up with the police again and hear back from a couple of detectives. They don't tell me much, instead asking just the same kinds of questions as the first officers I met. Please get the job done.

Best if it looks like accident or suicide. Then, four weeks after my initial contact, in mid-August, I finally get an email from the Metropolitan Police. Given there are no identifiable links to the UK currently, the Met will not be taking on an active investigation into the sites. But we have also passed on the intel to Interpol and they are actively investigating this. The relevant police forces in each country where a victim has been identified have been informed and also are conducting their investigations. So we've just officially as of today been handed from the Met police, who decided this

wasn't their problem, to Interpol, who hopefully have decided that it is. Interpol is the international police agency. They don't really investigate crimes, they're the glue that connects different police forces around the world together. And they will pass our information on to the relevant local cops. What happens next is anyone's guess. Who knows if they will actually do anything to properly investigate the orders. Meanwhile, the victims are still none the wiser.

The potential killers are still at large and new messages are being sent to the website all the time. Can you do a job in the UK for this girl? the time. Over the years, other journalists have learned of more people who have been threatened in similar ways. One of those journalists is Brian Merchant, a writer for Harper's magazine. I did manage to speak to a few people who told me that the FBI had been in touch or the local police had said something, but they never told me what it was. It was absolutely crazy to me that law enforcement had not gone to a greater effort to investigate these cases.

And as a result of this falling through the cracks, you see some very shoddy detective work, as in the case of the Allwines, there was very clearly expressed intent that this person was wanted dead. I think a serious investigation could have turned things up and she did not need to die. What Brian is telling me is that Amy Alwine isn't an outlier. Police forces have repeatedly failed to take these kinds of crimes seriously. Often the victims aren't even informed of the threat.

The targets on the kill list could be completely oblivious that someone wants them dead. And with disclosures going via Interpol, we have no direct contact with any of the investigators. They don't know who we are. They can't check, like the UK police did, to see that we're not mad. We can't tell them how we found the messages or give them updates when new ones are sent. As a journalist, you're supposed to observe, watch and report, but not interfere. But there's just no way I can wash my hands of this. It's the 29th of August, it's a weekend, it's a Saturday, and we are about to phone the first person on the kill list.

to phone the first person on the kill list. I genuinely feel quite sick. Hello there, can I speak to me please? Yes, me. Hello, it's me. Who are you? That's coming up on the of 6 of Kill List. Kill List is hosted by me, Kyle Miller. It was written by me, Caroline Thornton and Tom Wright.

Our lead producer is Caroline Thornton, our producer is Tom Wright. For Wandery, our story editor is Chris Siegel and our senior producer is Russell Finch. Our assistant producer is Amalia Sordant and our researchers are Megan O'Yinka and Lena Chang. Additional research from Chris Monteiro and from Anik Mosu, Fouca Postma and Brenna Smith at Bellingcat. Fact-checking by Fandorf Alton. Our managing producers are Cherie Houston, Sarah Tobin and Charlotte Wolf for Novel and Lata Pundia for Wandering. Original music by Skyler Gerdeman and Martin Linnabel. Music supervision by Nicholas Alexander, Max O'Brien

and Caroline Thornton. Sound design and mixing by Nicholas Alexander. Additional engineering by Daniel Kempson. For novel, Willard Foxton is creative director of development. Our executive producers are Sean Glynn, Austin Mitchell and Max O'Brien for novel. Executive producers for Wander-E are George Lavender, Marshall Louie and Jen Sargent. So that was the first episode of Kill List. And if you want to keep listening, you can listen to new episodes early and ad-free only on Wander-E+. And because we know you'll love this series, we're giving you a free trial. Start it today on the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.