Kill List - Nancy | 9

Episode Date: November 12, 2024

A young woman in France has been trying to leave her abusive boyfriend for years. But when she finally does, the harassment doesn’t stop and her requests for help from the police lead nowhere. Carl, with the help of an on the ground reporter, reveals how the Kill List exists at the intersection of domestic violence and systemic police failings.Follow the Kill List on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting www.wondery.com/links/kill-list now. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wandery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of Kaolist early and ad free. Join Wandery Plus in the Wandery app or on Apple Podcasts. Hey, it's Karl. Before we start, I just wanted to let you know that this episode includes an allegation of rape. It's late October, five days before Halloween, and Melanie Villain is at home getting dressed for work. Her dark blonde hair is pulled back in a tight bun and her fingers nervously fumble with the buttons on her crisp, white uniform. She's 23 and works as a waitress at La Celsiol, a posh brasserie, where she serves customers lobster, steak and champagne.

The restaurant sits on an elegant street corner in Nonsee, France. It's a baroque small city with winding medieval passageways. An atmospheric setting for a story about the voice of one woman and how hard it was for her to be heard. About how institutions, the state, the police can be deaf even when the victim is doing everything they can to raise the alarm. It's a story that in some ways begins on this day in Melanie's flat. The reason she's so nervous is that she's resolved to break up with her boyfriend for good.

Melanie is determined that before she leaves for her shift she will tell Ahmed that it's all over between them. She faces him and tells him. I'm fed up. It's over. I'm going to work and then I don't want to see you ever again. It's taken every ounce of courage that Melanie has to say those words to Ahmed. And now that she has, she's scared that there could be consequences. This moment is the beginning of Melanie's journey

onto the kill list. Someone with the alias Zongo54 goes on to pay $7,000 on a Hitman for Hhire website to have her killed. I would like you to kill this woman who lives in Nancy France. This person hurt me a lot. After I kill her, send me a picture of this death, please. They're graphic about how they want it to happen. I'm very angry.

I want it, if it was possible, to strike her blood and cut her both feet. My name is Karl Miller. Since 2020, I've been part of a team working in secret to stop people getting murdered. We broke into a scam Murder4Hire website on the dark web. into a scam murder for hire website on the dark web. Lurking inside, we saw with horror all the orders being placed, real people being targeted, real money being paid. Hundreds of people have had their lives threatened like this. We call it the Kill List. So far we've managed to help law enforcement arrest or convict

more than 30 people for putting someone they know onto the kill list, with over 150 years of prison time being handed down. This series is about the people whose lives were changed forever by the kill list. People like Melanie, a young woman who's terrified that even after raising the alarm, nobody's listening. Get ready for Las Vegas-style action at Bet MGM, the king of online casinos. Enjoy casino games at your fingertips with the same Vegas strip excitement MGM is famous for when you play classics like MGM Grand Millions or popular games like Blackjack, Baccarat, and Roulette.

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Thank you for listening. From Wandery and Novel, I'm Carl Miller, and this is Kill List. It was a little over two years earlier that Melanie and Ahmed first met. It was August 2018, and Melanie was a university student on her summer holidays, taking a break from studying in the city of Metz. Ahmed was five years older than her. His family is originally from Chant, and he was born on the Ivory Coast. He'd been living in France for five years. When they first met, Melanie says Ahmed was charming and it sounds like he love-bombed

her. It was the first time Melanie had experienced that from a guy and he swept her off her feet. When she went back to university in Metz, Ahmed would travel to see her once a week. Whilst they were long distance, things were okay. But that changed nine months later in April 2019. Melanie and Ahmed moved to Luxembourg together. Melanie was doing an internship and they got an apartment together.

And in April 2019, I was on a internship, which meant I was far from my parents. Now she was alone with him in a foreign country isolated from her parents. And Melanie says that Armé took advantage of that. He increasingly tried to take control of her. He would go through her phone making sure that she wasn't contacting her family back home. Melanie describes it as like being in prison.

She says she couldn't do anything without Ahmed's permission. And if she disobeyed him, there would be punishments. They moved back to Nancy, but things didn't improve. She and Ahmed would have explosive rounds. He became increasingly violent towards her and Melanie alleges that he raped her. As often can happen in cases like this, Melanie did not report this alleged crime straight away.

She felt trapped, didn't know where to go, and she says was being victimized within a relationship that was violent. That's where Romain, a delivery driver at Melanie's work, enters the picture. Romain is in his mid-20s, short dark hair, and a little rough around the edges. He's quiet, but also fiercely protective of those closest to him

and has been worried about Melanie for a while. It seems like Romain had a crush on Melanie but she always brushed him off. Then one day, Melanie was rushing around the corner where the brasserie is situated, late for work. She'd just had an argument with Ahmed, and she had tears in her eyes. Romain took her to one side and asked her what was wrong. She started to tell him everything. Romain started to look out for Melanie. He showed her a care and a kindness that she'd been lacking for so long in her relationship with Ahmed.

Romain made Melanie a promise. He told her he would show her that he wasn't like Ahmed. And so she said to herself, Why not be with Romain? Together, Melanie and Romain began to plot a way for her to leave Ahmed once and for all. And one Saturday in October 2019, five days before Halloween, Melanie put the plan into action. At the restaurant, Melanie told Romane what happened next, the scene that started our story. Ahmed just plain refused to accept the breakup,

and Melanie was scared of what might happen when she got home. Ahmed would be at work overnight, but he'd be back in the morning. Romain offered to come with her to stay the night, so when Ahmed comes home and sees that Melanie is with another man, he would finally realise that the relationship was over. A plan that you can't help but feel would inevitably precipitate a conflict of sorts. When Ahmed arrived back at the apartment the following morning, he found Melanie and Romain on the sofa. Predictably an argument broke out, each man telling the other one to leave. Romain pushed Ahmed and Ahmed called the police.

The police didn't do much to resolve the situation. They gave Rahman an informal caution, basically telling him off for his part of the argument. A few days later, Melanie went down to the police station and made the first of several official police complaints she would make against Ahmed. She accused him of domestic violence and rape, the one she says happened back when she was still with Ahmed. She feels that the police did not properly investigate.

Instead, they organised for her to see a specialist psychologist. So Ahmed did not face any charges. Instead, Melanie and Romain got an apartment together, away from Ahmed. But things didn't get better. Ahmed began to harass and stalk Melanie. It started with threatening messages on Twitter. You don't know what committing to someone means. You spent your entire life lying, lying, lying, lying to me. People like you end very, very badly.

Think well on what you've done and all those bad things that you've done. And remember this sentence, reap what you sow. Ahmed also sent Romain messages telling him that Ahmed knew where he lived and that he would come and kill him. Ahmed started coming to the restaurant where Melanie worked. He would circle around the block, waiting for her to finish her shifts. One day, he followed her home, insulting her.

Melanie would have to ask her manager to help escort her back to her flat. Romare also started to see Ahmed around the town while he was doing his food deliveries. Ahmed would be sitting on his own scooter waiting outside the restaurants where Melanie worked. And he was always threatening to show up at their apartment. So Melanie and Romare decided to move out and find a new place. And she even got a dog for protection, a formidable husky that she named Moon. Ahmed's intimidations and harassment went on for months and months.

But the police don't seem to have done much to stop Ahmed. In fact, the small steps they did take seem to have backfired massively. What Menene says happened, I still can't believe. The police called Ahmed down to the station. When he arrived, they gave him a verbal warning. But as they did so, Melanie says her complaint against Ahmed lay open in a file on the desk within Ahmed's site. He was able to see Melanie and Rahman's new address as well as photos Rahman had taken of him as he stalked them, which Roman had handed to the police in confidence. Shortly after, Ahmed sent Roman a new threat.

You son of a dog. I will find you now I know where you live. You think you can take a picture of me? You're going to see what happens. Menelis says that she forwarded these messages to the police and she says that as far as she knows nothing was done. She says that she's shocked and upset by how the police have handled everything. From the initial rape allegation through to her further allegations of domestic abuse and Ahmed's campaign of stalking. Melanie says that by this point, in December 2020, she's terrified to leave the house. She's scared that when she walks her dog or on the way to work, Ahmed could appear

from out the shadows. And it's at precisely this moment that me and my team come across the kill order demanding Melanie's death. Because Melanie doesn't speak English and I don't speak French, we need the help of a local reporter to get word to her that we think she's in danger. She's very, very distressed. So we're going to have to be very gentle with her. And I think she will literally freak out.

Adelie Posman-Pontay is a French journalist based in Paris who signed on to help us. She helped set up the first call with Melanie so we could break the news. When I had her on the phone, there was a man next to her. I don't know who this man is. I don't know if he will be with her on the call or in the room. But crossing fingers, it's not the man who asked her to be killed. But she's definitely been a victim of domestic abuse and violence before. From how distressed she sounds, it seems pretty obvious.

Very quickly, we realise that getting to the bottom of Melanie's case, and protecting her, will be a much bigger challenge than we'd expected. It will involve bringing a domestic abuser to justice within a system that so often fails its victims. What's the first step to growing your business? Getting people to notice you. But how do you do that? Two words. Constant contact.

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James, podcasting from his study and you have to say that's magnificent. Hello there, Melanie. Can you hear us? Melanie and Adélie look at me through a screen, sitting on a sofa in Melanie's apartment. Masks cover both of their faces, so the only bit of Melanie I can actually make out are her eyes, which widen as she hears Adélie translate my warning. So she says that she doesn't really know what the dark web is, but her boyfriend apparently knows what it is,

and she's pretty freaked out about what we're telling her. Sitting next to Melanie is her boyfriend, Romain. We always try to do our best to make sure the victim is alone when we break the news. It's often someone close to the victim that is behind the kill order. But very quickly, it becomes obvious that Melanie isn't worried about Romain. It's Ahmet she's worried about. She says in the past she's put official complaints with the police against her ex-boyfriend who was violent with her and who stoked her for a while and sent her death threats. She says she has a pretty quiet life otherwise and she doesn't think of anyone else who might

be thinking about hurting her. Melanie wants our help because she's scared the police won't believe her. Maybe they'll take her more seriously if it's coming from a media organization. And of course we're happy to help, that's why we're here. From here, our local reporter Adélie picked up the story. So I called up the local police station in Nancy and you know it was a Saturday afternoon so they didn't seem particularly prepared to take on the information. I got passed around from one officer to the other until finally I was able to get someone on the phone to report the crime. They thanked me for the information and they said they would look

into it. But to be honest, I wasn't very relieved. And you know, police in France, like a lot of police forces, they don't have the best reputation when it comes to dealing with domestic violence. In 2020, when this story was happening, less than 1% of all rapes and attempted rapes resulted in a conviction. So I felt it was very important to keep in touch with Melanie regularly. I mean, she's been in a very precarious position and if she's right about Ahmed being behind the order, then she has every reason to feel unsafe. It's really understandable. I mean, it's terrifying.

And it feels, you know, that Ahmed here is overwhelmingly the obvious suspect. I mean, Melanie's got absolutely no doubt in her mind at all. But on the other hand, and in fairness to the police, we've seen in other cases where actually that suspicion can be really ironclad and also entirely wrong. What's needed is a comprehensive, pro-active, competent police investigation. And what we've found again and again, all over the world,

is whether you get that or not basically depends on who picks up the case. You need someone competent, determined, sufficiently resourced to actually investigate and solve the crime. And Melanie's case, well, that lands on the desk of a man called Stéphane Javert. I am deputy prosecutor in Nancy at the public prosecution office. In France, prosecutors like Stéphane Javert also have an investigatory role.

So he's not just making the case in court, he also has a role leading the investigation. And it turns out that he was already investigating Ahmed, completely independently of us. So Adélie, what did he tell you about that investigation? So Monsieur Javert, the prosecutor, told me that the French police had already opened an urgent investigation into Ahmed just weeks before we contacted them. So literally a couple of weeks before I spoke with Melanie, an alarm went off inside the French police. It's this internal system which they have that flags intelligence when there's a threat to life.

And very quickly, the information got to Stéphane Gevet. Of course, I took it very seriously because there was a potential threat of harm to human life and it is my job to take this kind of threat seriously. The intelligence Stephane Javert had received was that somebody by the alias Zongo54 had been posting publicly on dark web forums complaining that they'd been scammed out of 3000 euros on a Hitman for hire site trying to have a woman and Nancy killed.

No. So Zongo54 has been going on other public forums being like, I'm trying to get this woman killed, I've paid a lot of money, and they're not doing it, what's going on? He's literally doing like a customer complaint. Huh. So what does Stephane Javert do about this? It seems like somebody saw these public forum posts, and they decided to report it to the French police. But Javert only had the username Zongo to go on. He had no idea who Zongo was and who they were trying to harm. He called up a team of digital investigators. The police were able to track down Zongo's IP address.

Which made it possible to easily locate the likely user, the likely user in Nancy, France. And it was Mr. Hamad Ibrahim. So Javet knew that someone on the internet was bragging about having committed a serious crime and he could trace that crime back to Ahmed. But they still didn't know who the victim was. Unlike any of the private messages that we had had access to, Ahmed's forum post didn't identify Melanie as the target by name. But when he looked through Ahmed's file,

Javay noticed something. It was Melanie's rape complaint. I and the police in this case also immediately made a connection with an ongoing procedure for rape. Javay says that, at this point, the police quickly put Ahmed, as well as Melanie and Romain, under observation. There were some discrete surveillances.

And Romain actually told me later on that he'd seen a car that he thought was undercover police sitting in the street for several days. But nobody told Melanie anything about the threats. For three weeks, the police knew that Ahmed was threatening her life, and Melanie was completely in the dark about it. It was only when we got in touch with her that she first realized what was happening. It seems utterly bizarre to me that they didn't inform Melanie

about what they thought was a credible, serious threat against her life. What does Javet have to say about that? What Javet told me was that he can understand that Melanie feels that the police should have intervened sooner. But he also says that they didn't have enough evidence to be able to arrest Ahmed, and the messages we provided were actually the missing piece in the puzzle. Your assistance was appreciated because you gave us two pieces of information we didn't have yet. What we had that the police didn't were the private messages between Zongo and the hitman for Hyacite, the kill order itself, and we had access to the payment made for the hit. These two pieces of information proved that Zongo was trying to have Melanie murdered.

It showed the method by which he wanted her killed, the motive behind the crime, and finally the payment that was made to make the murder happen. Once they had all of that information, the police were able to move quickly. I felt that I had enough evidence to prosecute him before court under the legal qualifications of incitement to commit an assassination. And the penalty for this offence is 10 years. When the police search Ahmed's home, they find more evidence that they say points to Ahmed planning a murder. Police made a search of Mr. Ibrahim's apartment and it was found a 35-centimeter long kitchen

knife hidden in a bag. Moreover, police officers discovered a file named People to be Eliminated, in which we could find photographs of Mrs. Vian and her companion. Having a file entitled People to be Eliminated doesn't imply at least to me, Adélie, that we're dealing with a criminal mastermind here. No, I think we can all agree on that. And I think Melanie was quite baffled by that information herself.

It really made her laugh. They also found another piece of evidence that show how Ahmed paid for the hit. According to which we understood that he had, a few months ago, taken out a bank credit of 3,600 euros. And so with all that evidence, Stephane Javert is able to act on it and he's able to put Ahmed on trial. And they do so in double quick time. So three weeks after we first contacted Melanie, and just two days after Ahmed was arrested,

Melanie is getting ready to come face to face in court with the man who paid to have her murdered. I'm Colin Murray. And I'm Menace James. And this is everything to play for, the show that takes you inside the greatest sports stories of all time. Our latest two-part series tells the tale of what we think is the best British boxing

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and enjoy our new weekly bonus episodes where we're allowed to talk about whatever we want. Because who's gonna stop us, Colin? So Adderley, this case raises so many questions. Maybe the most important, and it's one that I wrestle with a lot. What would have happened, do you think, if we hadn't stepped in? The police investigation was already there. Would they simply have caught him on their own? I think that's really hard to say. I think the information that we gave was definitely a tipping point for them as well. And I'm not really sure if or how they would have been able to get it.

And I think there were already several complaints from Melanie for harassment, stalking, rape. I feel like something could have been done there. But it also feels like what we're seeing here is two different kinds of crimes that the police aren't always good at investigating. Domestic violence on the one hand, and then crimes on the dark web. And in this case, we've got these two things coming together in a way that's really exposing a failure of policy. And I think it's really interesting that such a wild story on the dark web

that's taking us all over the world actually helps shine a light on all the systemic failings of one country, one police force, one state, to take us deep down into the eastern part of France. Do you think the police could have acted sooner to protect Melanie? Well, I think you could really tell that Melanie was really upset by all of this. I mean, amongst the details that she gave me is that the police wasn't able to tell

her anything, to date her on any of her complaints. They didn't even put a restraining order on Ahmed, I don't think. And actually, within the few months that she had been complaining to the police about him, he actually moved houses even closer to where Melanie lived. But you know, Melanie felt really scared about just going to work, walking her dog, she carried pepper spray. She really struck me as someone who was very vulnerable and that the state and the police were really letting down.

Was it your sense that Ahmed was spiraling out of control? Because this kind of dynamic of a former spouse who's lost control, lost the person, and is now engaging in a series of escalating and increasingly more violent, perhaps also more desperate attempts to get them back. That's one we've seen a kind of shocking and saddening number of times in The Killers so far. Is that broadly, do you think, what you were seeing there with Ahmed and Meneneh?

Yeah, although I think I would put a bit of nuance on that. I don't think it's right to paint men who commit domestic violence as spiraling out of control. I don't think they're out of control of the situation. I think they're very much acting and behaving in a way that has been condoned by society and by institutions at large for centuries. They think they're in their right to do that. They think they're in their right to act that way with the women they have or have had relationships with. And I think neither the police nor the justice system nor the media, pretty much anywhere,

but definitely not in France, have held them accountable. I don't think he's spiraling out of control. I think he wants to remain in control in a place where Melanie is taking over control of her life. And that's a really important distinction to make. It's always felt weird to me that it ends up, in a strange way, being our responsibility to try and sort out the ruinous aftermaths of these often messy, often very violent relationships gone wrong. Yeah, and I think the police could have intervened a lot sooner in that case.

There were many, many instances where they could have responded to Melanie's complaint. But on the flip side of all of this is that we were able to keep Melanie safe. And I think at the end of the day, that's really what matters. And Ahmed did, in the end, face serious consequences for his actions. It's late at night, past 10pm, when Ahmed's case is finally heard at the Tribunal Correctionnel de Nancy. It's a modern building shaped like a half moon, and Ahmed's one of the five cases being heard in court on that day. and Ahmed's one of the five cases being heard in court on that day. Mélanie Romain has been sat in the courtroom for hours in order to finally see justice be done.

The whole thing has been a whirlwind. Melanie only found out the trial was happening the day before and nobody explained to her what exactly Ahmed had been arrested for. Melanie's not sure she's here because of the rape allegation, either stalking and harassment complaints she's filed, or the murder-for-hire allegation. The whole thing feels incredibly rushed, and she's never been to court before,

so she's understandably nervous. Questions are racing round her mind. What is Ahmed going to say? How is he going to argue his case? What is Ahmed going to say? How is he going to argue his case? Will they believe him, or will they take her seriously? Melanie's not the only one grappling with these sort of questions. Ahmed's lawyer has been trying to work out how exactly to defend him. I am Maître Moudni Adan Naima, I have been a lawyer at the Barot de Nancy for 30 years.

Naima Moudni Adan is an experienced defence attorney of over 30 years. But like Mélanie, she only found out about the trial at the last minute. She had to read all the case documents and then only had 20 minutes to speak to Ahmed to work out what his defense could possibly be in the face of all the evidence. I mean this seems it's moving at light speed. Is this normal in France for the legal process to be happening at this kind of pace? It can be. It's called an immediate appearance, comparution immédiate, and it's a kind of fast-track justice that can be requested by the prosecution to a judge. It happens a lot and it's a controversial practice

because it's arguable whether you can really do justice that quickly. It's really unfair on victims like Melanie who get dragged into court with virtually no notice but to be honest it's also unfair on defendants who don't get to choose or meet their lawyers, who don't get a lot of time to prepare the defence. So what are the circumstances then when you do get tried in this way? So usually it's when the evidence is really clear cut. There's no real way to counter the fact that you've done what you've done. Ahmed has already admitted to the police that he went onto the hitman for hire site.

But he says he never intended for Melanie to get hurt, and it was simply curiosity on his part. Because it was her defence. I did it out of curiosity. Naima Mouni-Addam, his lawyer, knows that explanation isn't going to fly, but she has found something that she thinks might help Ahmed's case. The police gave him a psychological evaluation, and the psychologist who assessed him has concluded that he may be suffering

from a psychiatric condition indicating isolation and personality problems. We don't know exactly what, but something that could help explain or mitigate his actions. When she stands up in court, Naima Mouniadon tries to rely on this report. She paints a picture of Ahmed as a troubled loner who couldn't fully comprehend what he was doing and therefore, in his mind mind he never really intended to harm Melanie. Unfortunately for his lawyer, Ahmed doesn't seem to have got the memo and when the judge calls on him to speak, Ahmed completely undoes his own defense. He tells the judge after everything has been

said and done, the psychologist was wrong. I am completely normal. I don't have any mental health condition. I have lots of friends. I'm not suffering from anything. And what they do want is not to be charged with a heavy sentence. He speaks for about 20 minutes. And by the end, Naima Moudni-Adon, his lawyer, says he's completely undone everything she's

been trying to do to defend him. At one point, Ahmed even tries to address Melanie directly, but her lawyer cuts him off and tells him not to speak to her. And things even get worse. Melanie's allegation of rape against Ahmed is read out in court and in graphic detail. For Melanie, that is just too much to take. For Melanie, that is just too much to take. Melanie leaves the courtroom in tears and goes to the bathroom to get some air.

Can you imagine that in seven days, she's gone from thinking the police would never step in to help her to having her most personal and traumatic memories read out in court. And that comes with a lot of scrutiny. Ahmed's lawyer is quick to cast doubt on Melanie's allegations of rape and domestic violence. Naima Mouni-Addam argues that it's only Melanie's word against Ahmed. There's no medical certificate and no other physical evidence to prove what Melanie's alleging. She said a lot of things, but nothing that justifies what she said. Naima Moudniadon makes other claims as well.

After that, since the MeToo wave, we've always heard women... She says that since the beginning of the MeToo movement, a lot of women are kind of like coming out of the woods with allegations of violence and rape and control and harassment. She says that during their relationship, Melanie was studying, she was working, she did an internship, she had the freedom to come and go as she pleased. And so why should anybody believe her when she says Ahmed was being violent and controlling? Well, this is all quite uncomfortable listening, isn't it? Because on the one hand, Ahmed's lawyer is doing her job.

But on the other hand, in all our discussions with Melanie, I don't think we've ever had any reason to really disbelieve anything that she's said here. Yeah, why would she go through the trouble of going to the police and putting that out there in the public sphere? Like, why would she go through the trouble of being called in court for a false accusation? Which, she's not getting a lot out of it, is she, in that situation? No. And it's important for us to remember that Melanie's complaint of rape

was one of the first complaints that she made to the police. So was Ahmed actually ever charged for that complaint? No, not as far as we know. Ahmed was never charged for the rape allegation. I don't believe that ever went to court. And I think the lack of follow-up investigation is really a problem in that sort of cases, especially because it was only after she and Ahmed broke up that Melanie felt able to go to the police and try to hold him accountable.

So where do we stand now then? What happened to Ahmed? So the silver lining to all of this is that Ahmed did in fact get convicted. He did face justice. He was found guilty of trying to have Melanie killed and sentenced to four years in prison. What do you think about that? You know, is that enough? Yeah, and especially as Stephane Javert told us, he could get up to 10 years, that's really half of it.

But you know, it also depends on how you look at it. Because in France, it's very rare for somebody to be given prison time for their first offence. And on paper at least, you know, the Dark Web murder for hire plot was the first time Ahmed was ever convicted of any crime. So to get 5 years sentence in that context means the judge took it extremely seriously and thought he was really threatening. How is Melanie now? Had she been able to move on to begin to heal in the wake of all of this? The last time I spoke to Melanie, she seemed to be really struggling.

Her and Roman were still struggling with the aftermath of that case. They were struggling for money. They were trying to work overtime to make ends meet. And she told me she really didn't want to think about what had happened to Ahmed anymore, whether he was out of prison, whether he wasn't. She just didn't want to dwell on that particular aspect of her life. They were trying to move forward. They were trying to rebuild their lives, basically.

You know, when I first started doing this, I never thought that we would be dealing with the cases that we have done. I never thought that we would be dealing with the cases that we have done. I never thought that we would basically have so many cases that had to do with broken relationships, with questions of power and control and domestic violence. And you would be blind if you couldn't see the gender dimension running throughout so many of these different cases. So many of the targets on the kill list ended up being women and so many of the people that put them onto that list

ended up being men. In almost every case, the moment when the target is placed on the kill list is the moment when usually she is stepping away from that relationship and trying to set herself free. And I think that sense of entitlement of they are within their right to contest a woman leaving them is very much part of how toxic relationships work

and what patriarchy as a whole relies onto. Like feeling entitled to women being your possession basically and you can have them do whatever you want. And when they stop doing that, it makes you mad. And I think that can show up even in smaller ways than the very freak scenario we're seeing here. Mm-hmm. And I suppose that's one of the ironies, really, of the Kill List.

Is that our investigation has been, you know, into the dark net, into this strange and personal and scary space. But in doing that, it's kind of shone a light on the society that we all live in. The irony is that the kind of dark net element which is so scary, you know, a place which is supposed to be hidden, has actually acted more like a spotlight. And here, it's directed our gaze at a story that we probably wouldn't have seen because tragically it's too normal. I think it says a lot about how powerless women can be in the face of domestic violence.

This is a bit of a freak case. You know, when I first got the initial call about this story, I was like, what the hell is this? What is going on? A website on the dark web, Hitman for Hire, which is actually a scam. Like this seemed like a story that's completely out there. Like really it was the stuff of movies. And I really didn't know what I was coming into. And then when I got to meet Melanie in her apartment

with her dog and her boyfriend in Nancy, she was so young, early 20s, a waitress, she felt so vulnerable. And it took me a while actually to really realize that She was so young, early 20s, a waitress. She felt so vulnerable. And it took me a while actually to really realize that this really kind of freak scenario of a man going on the dark web, getting a loan to hire a hitman to kill his ex-girlfriend was actually a story of domestic violence and control. And that type of story, if you take out the hitman element,

is actually incredibly common. And I think it's really important to put this case in the perspective of how normalized violence against women and violence within relationships is. This is not just a freak case. It is actually a very normal, basic case of violence against women that happens all over the world. Next time on Kill List, we're in Knoxville, Tennessee, for a case that starts as a who-done-it and ends as a why-done-it. One where we begin to question just how guilty the perpetrator truly is. way more than just this being what he's known for. I just want this to not be the final sentence in his story. Prior members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wandery.com

From Wandery and Novel, this is Kill List. Kill List is hosted by me, Carmilla. The reporter for this episode is Adélie Pozman-Ponté, and it was produced and written by our series producer, Tom Wright. Kill List is also produced by Caroline Thornton and Jaka Tyovic. Our assistant producer is Amalia Sautland. And our researchers are Megan Oynke and Lena Chang. Additional research from Chris Monteiro.

For Wandery, our senior producer is Mandy Gorenstein. Fact-checking by Fendor Fulton. Our managing producers are Cherie Houston, Sarah Tobin and Charlotte Wolfe for Novel. Sarah Mathers is our managing producer and Callum Plues is our senior managing producer for Wandery. Original music by Skyler Gerdman and Martin Linebelle. Music supervision by Nicholas Alexander, Max O'Brien, and Caroline Thornton. Sound design and mixing by Nicholas Alexander.

For novel, Willard Foxton is creative director of development. Our executive producers are Sean Glynn, Max O'Brien, and Craig Strachan for novel. Executive producers for Wandery are Marshall Louis and Erin O'Flaherty.