Visitors to RentAHitman.com are asked a simple question: "Got a problem that needs resolving?" The website is a joke, but some people still take it seriously and submit a request for murder. Wendy Wein is one of those people.
The RentAHitman.com may be a joke, but using it to try to get someone else to kill your ex-husband is not, and carries real-world consequences. She pleaded guilty to solicitation of murder and using a computer. The former crime has a maximum sentence of lifetime, while the latter is capped at 20 years.
Wein will serve a minimum of nine years in prison. She will be sentenced by Daniel White, the 38th Circuit Court Judge in Michigan, in January.
Wein's story sounds like a comedy skit you might see on SNL. When you realize she meant to harm someone else, you are replaced with fear and in awe.
She started by filling out a service request form, which asks users for basic information on themselves such as name, phone number, and email, as well as information on who they want taken out, under a fake name. RentAHitman.com is a simple website. It claims to have 17,985 field operatives in the U.S. to help customers, and that it is compliant with the Hitman Information Privacy & Protection Act of 1964.
Customer testimonials are obviously fake at RentAHitman.com. Rent-A-Hitman is no longer affiliated with Diners Club, the Illuminati, Rudolph Giuliani, Alec Baldwin or Kyle Rittenhouse due to contractual restrictions.
Some people still think RentAHitman.com is a legit website that offers a real service.
Bob Innes, the owner of the joke site, told the Washington Post that he didn't understand. People are stupid.
Wein agreed to meet one of the website's "field operatives," who was actually an undercover police detective, to discuss the job she wanted done. The police were contacted by Innes, who said that Wein was a real threat.
According to the Post, Wein told the police detective that her ex-husband was a pedophile and that she gave him details about when he went to work, and how long he stayed. She agreed to give the police detective $5,000 when her husband was taken care of, after she gave him a $200 down payment for the murder. Wein was arrested after the encounter.
According to the Post, Innes said that she was hellbent on revenge and never did her homework.
Innes didn't set out to create a honeypot to catch people who wanted to kill. After taking a network penetration testing and risk analysis course, he set up RentAHitman.com in 2005 to start a cybersecurity company. He tried to sell RentAHitman.com but never got any serious offers, so he just stayed online.
Innes decided to check the site's email to see if anyone was interested in buying the domain. He found over 300 emails from people around the world seeking various services, from using RentAHitman.com to extort money from others, to asking how much he charged to carry out a hit in Austria.
Innes got an email from a woman from the United Kingdom who wanted three of her family members killed because she claimed they had left her without an inheritance. Innes was alarmed by the information the woman gave about the family members she wanted killed. He got the information from the Canadian police, who found that the woman had outstanding warrants for serious charges in the U.K. and extradited her.
Over the years, he has gotten other serious requests that have led to arrests. A woman in Kansas wanted to kill people in her town who were said to be bad to her, and she told him to use guns, bombs or anything to remove them. The woman from Kansas was sentenced to three years of supervised parole after being found guilty of solicitation to commit murder.
A 20-year-old man from Virginia wanted his ex-girlfriend, her mother, and her stepfather killed. He asked Innes to take her baby so he could start a family with another woman. The Virginia man was sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to solicitation of murder. According to Rolling Stone, at least a dozen cases involving people using RentAHitman.com have led to arrest.
Innes doesn't meet his potential customers in person or agree on a fee for the website's services. He passes on information he thinks is troubling to the police, who are in charge of making contact with the individual. RentAHitman.com helped police catch a criminal more than a decade ago. Despite the fact that Innes doesn't keep the website's true nature a secret, he has done a variety of news interviews about it.
Innes told the Post that it was a crazy world. The internet is dangerous. The website is a good place to find fruit that is trying to harm other people.
