Kill List - The Hack | 1

Episode Date: October 8, 2024

Binge episodes 1-6 and weekly new episodes of Kill List by signing up for Wondery+ on Apple or Spotify.A frantic 911 call sparks an investigation into a suspicious death. The case takes an unexpected turn when the victim’s name is discovered among those on a dark net kill list.Listener note: This episode contains references to suicide. If you have been affected by this episode you can find additional resources here:In the United States - American Foundation for Suicide PreventionInternationally - International Association for Suicide PreventionFollow 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.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of K.O.L.L.I.S.T. early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Hey, it's Carl 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 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 winehouse. There aren't really any streetlights for the most part,

but I could see flashing emergency lights down the road. It was around 8pm on November 13th, 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 Allwine and their 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 mudroom. A couple of dog kennels there. The first thing he 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. 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 McAllister 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 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 McAllister pause. 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. From Wondery and Novel, I'm Carl Miller. This is 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 roads were silent, apart from the sound of ambulances. All right, Chris, what's been going on? Way too much, way too much. Cascade of things, well, two things. I was on a video call with a man called Chris Montero. Chris has a short beard and long, dark hair pulled back 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 a nightie specialist by day, but a hacker by night. Chris had called me and said we needed to speak urgently. All right, well, Chris, tell us about this case. Is this a serious one? One minute, I'll go into it in just a sec. 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. I would like to order a killing by stabbing using a tactical knife. I'm wondering if a mugging gone wrong might be an option. Maybe use something like heroin or fentanyl Chris was doing what he often did Investigating the myths and rumours that swirl around about the dark net He was looking as a hitman for hire website 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 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 Alwyn'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 agent 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 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 apologise to whoever was behind the threat for whatever she had done to anger them. Then, a few months later, on November 13th, at 7pm, Minneapolis 911 dispatch received a call.

It's pretty distressing to listen to. 911, what's the address of the emergency? Thank you. Hello? I think my wife shot herself. There's blood all over. Okay, what is your address, sir? It's Stephen Allwine, 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? Yeah. 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 murder-for-hire website that Chris Montero 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. A killing by gunshot is the easiest and cheapest. DogDayGod 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 traveling 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 HireSite administrator, a shadowy figure who is often anonymous, but sometimes goes by the name Eura. 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. It does not look like anything has happened yet, and I still have no evidence that she's even being trapped.

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. Jura offered a solution. We can assign a great team with experts that have military training if you can add 8 Bitcoin to your account. DogdeGod 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 refund. 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 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 Allwine. 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 U.S., 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. I mean, 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 McAnister 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 Stephen,

but 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 Irwine'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 she will 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 danger seemed a bit unclear to me. After all, the Murder for Hire 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, dark-net 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, 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. Fucking hell. Flames engulf the screen. 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. 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 Jura. 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 and 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 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 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. There are few things as terrifying as being buried alive. And that fear became a reality for 20-year-old college student Barbara Mackle when she was kidnapped. Her captors took her to a remote area where they buried her in a specially constructed wooden container and threatened that if her wealthy father didn't deliver a $500,000 cash ransom, they would leave her to slowly suffocate in her subterranean prison. Were her captors ever caught? Well, in season 37 of Against the Odds, we dig into one of the most notorious cases

of the 1960s and the aftermath. On Against the Odds, host adventurers Mike Corey and Cassie de Picol share stories of survival and resilience with true stories that make you feel as though you're living these experiences with our heroes as they endure beyond their limits. Follow Against the Odds on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Against the Odds early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. All right, 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 strike 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... you know, 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. It's innocuous, 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. They should say she's dead because of accident, not by 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. Women.

45 years old. Jesus, man, this is terrible. These are really possibly 85 really serious crimes just staring back at us. Yeah. 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 an 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. I'm 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?

Merchant Parson, police watch region for calling. Hi there, my name is Carl Miller. 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 dark net. So these are websites... 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 phone. I think maybe it would 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. All right, 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. Sorry, I appreciate early in the morning. Are you OK to speak to us?

I am, yes. Please come in, yeah. 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. It's quite complicated, so it might need a number of interactions. Yeah. No, it's fine. 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 payments. 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, are they just names? In most cases, it's definitely like region and name.

So it's like... 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, this is in, we happen to be a bit diligent when we get caught doing this nature. We generally want to wait, 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. No, but it is a story. 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. Amazing.

Whatever I can find out and actually tell you after I find it.outs of the messages. Someone will be in touch in the next little bit. Amazing. Whatever I can find out and actually tell you after I find it. I really appreciate it. Thank you. No, no, no, thank you. No worries. I'll forgo the handshake given the corona, but thanks so much for coming over. OK, 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. I'm looking to hire for a murder of a woman. Target needs to be hit when allowed. 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? I can tell you where she runs late at night on a quiet path with no one there. Target needs to be eliminated. Case set.

Beat or poison or shoot. I don't have much time left and the job must be done. 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 Allwine 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.

I genuinely feel quite sick. Hello there, can I speak to *** please? Yes, me. Hello, it's me. Who are you? That's coming up on the next episode of Kill List, you can binge all episodes ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music.

Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wandry.com slash survey. From Wandry and Novel, this is episode one of Kill List. Kill List is hosted by me, Kyle Miller. It was written by me, Caroline Thornham and Tom Wright. Our lead producer is Caroline Thornham. Our producer is Tom Wright. For Wanderie, our story editor is Chris Siegel

and our senior producer is Russell Finch. Our assistant producer is Amalia Sordland and our researchers are Megan Oyinka and Lena Chang. Additional research from Chris Montero and from Anik Mosu, Fuka Postma and Brenna Smith at Bellingcat. Fact-checking by Fendor Fulton. Our managing producers are Cherie Houston, Sarah Tobin and Charlotte Wolfe for Novel and Lata Pundia for Wondery.

Original music by Skylar Gerderman and Martin Linnebell. Music supervision by Nicholas Alexander, Max O'Brien Thank you. Our executive producers are Sean Glynn, Austin Mitchell, Max O'Brien, and Craig Strachan for novel. Executive producers for Wondery are George Lavender, Marshall Louis, and Jen Sargent. Are you captivated by the dark and mysterious world of true crime? Wondery Plus offers you the ultimate true crime experience with early access to new episodes, exclusive content, and a seamless ad-free listening journey. With Wondery Plus, you'll get access to hundreds of podcasts, including more than 50 true crime series like Dr. Death,

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