What is it with people trying to hire hitman via the dark web? In this case a woman in the UK decided she was done with her former significant other. It landed her seven and a half years in prison.
I bet you didn’t expect our leading lady to be named “horses5” in the “Online Killers Market”, but buckle up!
The court heard that on 10 August last year Norfolk Police received information that a user on the dark web called ‘horses5’ had posted request to have someone killed on a site called the ‘Online Killers Market’ on 4 July.
The post, which was traced to Helen Hewlett, who pleaded not guilty to the offences at an earlier hearing, was in relation to the male victim and read, ‘Need someone killed in Norfolk, vital it is made to look like an accident, order has been placed through the order page and money is waiting in escrow, have home address, work address, work times and social media information if needed.’
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A reply to Hewlett’s request came from a user named #Marksmen on 14 July. Hewlett had posted in her original request the victim’s work schedule and details of his social media accounts, adding:
‘Needs to be killed, vital it looks like an accident.’
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The deposits amounted to a total of US$20547.47 which reflects the payment requested by ‘horses5 quoted on the Online Killers Market. The funds were then tracked through various unidentified accounts to have ended up connected to an individual in Romania.
Hewlett was arrested at her home on 12 August 2022 and a mobile phone was recovered from a bedside cabinet in Hewlett’s bedroom, which she confirmed in interview belonged to her and matched the number provided by the currency exchange platform. The app used to access the dark web was also downloaded on the mobile device. Hewlett also had three hitman sites bookmarked.
During interview, Hewlett admitted turning to the dark web in the first half of 2022 after the breakdown of her relationship with the victim. He claims this amounted to some ‘flirty’ messaging and sexual activity in her car. She claimed he had bullied and harassed her at work. He then raised a harassment case against her with police in 2022.
The day after her arrest, on 13 August 2022 police went to victim’s home address and he described a long campaign of harassment by Hewlett where he had to block various email addresses so she could not contact him. Shortly after he reported the harassment to the police, and she was issued words of advice.
https://www.norfolk.police.uk/news/latest-news/kings-lynn-woman-jailed-after-attempting-hire-hit-man-murder-victim
We had an interesting episode with Dr. Ilg’s hitmen here:
eCrimeBytes S 1, Ep 10, Pt 1: Threesomes And Hitmen!
eCrimeBytes S 1, Ep 10, Pt 2: Threesomes And Hitmen!
Sources
Transcript
[00:00:00]
[00:00:08] Keith: Today on eCrimeBytes Nibble number 40, we’re gonna talk about a woman that tried to hire a hitman on the dark web to kill her former, significant other. What is it with people trying to hire hitman on the dark web? I picked this case up because we had a full episode earlier this year about hitman and threesomes that I will discuss at the end of this quick eCrimeBytes nibble.
[00:00:36] And it was so juicy that when I see hitman cases like this, I usually read into ’em to see what they’re about. Well, in this case, it was a woman in the UK and she decided she was done with her former significant other. Because she tried to hire a hitman, that costed her seven and a half years in prison.
[00:00:56] Now what’s interesting is, I didn’t really have a lot of mental picture about this woman, but. When they told me her online name was horses5 and she’s shopping for a hitman in a place called Online Killers Market on the Dark Web, that seemed kind of strange to me. So the police have a press release from the UK and I can’t summarize it any better than they did, so I’m just gonna read you the very interesting passages from their press release.
[00:01:30] So this was August 10th of last year that the police received information that a user on the dark web called horses5 had posted a request to have someone killed on a site called Online Killers Market on the 4th of July.
[00:01:48] Now, this is dark web, so it’s, seeing online killers market on the normal web would raise a lot more red flags than seeing on the dark web. But this is on the dark web, so things are named like this on the dark web. So this post, which was traced to Helen Hewlett, who pleaded not guilty to the offenses at an earlier hearing was in relation to a male victim in read needs someone killed in Norfolk.
[00:02:14] Vital, it is made to look like an accident. Order has been placed through the order page, and money is waiting in escrow. Have some have home address work, address work times, and social media information if needed.
[00:02:30] It’s almost like she’s ordering, GrubHub or something like that, except it’s a murder.
[00:02:36] So a reply came back to Hewlett’s request from a user named marksman on the 14th of July, and this is about 10 days later. Hewlett had posted an original request the victim’s work schedule and details of his social media accounts adding needs to be killed. Vital. It looks like an accident. Then there were deposits that amounted the total of about $20,000, which reflect the payment requested by the people who quoted horses5 on the online killers market. Police officers, they do their investigative techniques on these funds, and it was tracked through various unidentified accounts to have ended up connected to an individual in Romania.
[00:03:21] So Hewlett, she was arrested at her home, 12th of August of 2022, and a mobile phone was recovered from a bedside cabinet in Hewlett’s bedroom, which she confirmed in interview, belonged to her and it matched the number provided by the currency exchange platform that she used to pay this escrow. The app used to access the dark web was also downloaded on the mobile device, and Hewlett had three hitman sites bookmarked! The investigators probably were like, woohoo cause they didn’t have to do a lot of work at that point.
[00:04:01] All right, so during the interview, Hewlett admitted to turning to the dark web in the first half of 2022 after the breakdown of her relationship with the victim. When they talked to the victim, he claims this, there were some flirty messaging and some sexual activity in her car, but she claimed he had bullied and harassed her at work.
[00:04:21] He then raised a harassment case against her with police in 2022. So then, the police talked to him after her arrest and they went to his house and he described a long campaign of harassment by Hewlett where he had to block various email addresses so she couldn’t contact him. And shortly after he reported the harassment to police, she was issued words of advice, which I imagine, I’m not from the uk, but I imagine that’s some court process in the UK where it’s probably kind of like a restraining order, I imagine, in the US, where she can’t contact him. That’s what I took from it. So if you like this, we actually have an episode, a full episode on eCrimeBytes about hitman and threesomes. It’s called eCrimeBytes, season one, episode 10, threesomes and Hitman. And it is probably one of our most interesting cases that we’ve looked at yet on our podcast, so I invite you to check it out over there, and I hope to see you on one of our longer episodes soon. Thanks. Bye.
[00:05:29]
#ecrimebytes #electronic #truecrime #podcast #hitman #hitmen #darkweb #humor #funny #comedy
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