A few years ago, there was an HBO documentary called the The Iceman Confesses: Secrets of a Mafia Hitman (available through Netflix) about a mob hitman who supposedly killed over a hundred people. It’s interesting, but chilling.
Are you kidding? Seriously - is this a joke? Not only do I not want anyone dead, I can’t imagine wanting someone dead. I mean, there are people that I don’t really want to spend time with and wouldnt’ invite out for a picnic, but I don’t want them dead. I think you really are projecting your own angst onto other people.
Now, perhaps everyone I know want’s ME dead which is why they’ve never mentioned it - they’re waiting for their chance, but really - your hypothesis seems lacking in emperical support.
No it was not a joke. You will be very lucky if you live your entire life without being in a situation where the only thing stopping you from murder is lack of means or threat of punishment (be it spiritual, social or legal). I envy you. Just out of curiosity and as a sanity check I called my 62 year old mother and quite bluntly asked her if she’s ever wanted anybody dead. I’m still on the phone as I’m typing this and her list isn’t terribly long but she noted that the first time she was in such a situation she was already past 40.
Just as one out of a million examples, have you seen the rape and child molestation statistics? What do you think the brothers, the husbands (or even wives) and the fathers of rape victim think about the rapist. I’ll give you a hint, it’s not “He should serve 10 years in jail, get rehabilitated and be released as a productive member of society”. I know two alleged rapists - both cases never reported to the police, never brought up, and there’s nothing I can do that does not involve the victim against her wishes. Two people who are incredibly dear to me got hurt. A few months ago I ran into one of the perpetrators at a 7/11. I walked out quickly and left, if I didn’t I’d be in jail right now.
I am not saying revenge is right. I am not saying anybody deserves death for whatever it is they did. I don’t even know how I feel about the death penalty. However, saying that you want somebody dead does not in any respect imply that you feel that it is right. We want a lot of things we feel are wrong - most religions, for example, deal almost exclusively with restraint. And just like with any conflicted desire, some people go one way others go another. It takes great strength to forgive somebody, and such strength is respectable, but if we were all capable of it we woudln’t need laws against murder.
I think Priceguy’s got a point. On the one hand, is the market big enough? How many murders do you think could be attributable to these alleged highly paid hitmen instead of thugs? Is a person likely to trust someone outside their (probably criminal) circle of friends/associates with this kind of a task? Does the alleged highly paid hitman offer something the thug you know doesn not? Are the services of a highly paid hitman going to be in needed frequently enough to pay the bills?
I mean, it makes a great movie device a la Grosse Point Blank, but are there any documented cases of someone like that? Reality often does not share the sheen and gloss the movies put on things.
There is definitely a case for hiring a remote professional rather than a thug who is a friend of a friend.
a) It is less likely to go wrong
b) If it does he/she is unlikely to finger you
c) He/she is unlikely to try blackmailing you - a thug will be back for more
I think that I would look for someone like that via shady associates, but affluent ones.
Since the concept is well established in fiction, it seems unlikely that such arrangements do not exist - sort of Nature imitating Art - if not vice versa.
My boss loaned me a tape of part of this. It was indeed chilling and since he is in jail for some of his crimes I assumed it was for real.
But let’s put it another way.
How many unsolved and unexplained murders do we have? Thing is, most murders are easily solved. The typical cases of the boyfriend murdering a young woman. Or the husband returning early from work, finding a strange car in the driveway, and getting his gun from under the seat. Or two guys getting in a macho showdown and one ending up dead.
Then there are the unsolved murders…but these are things like dead prostitutes, drive-by shootings, gang murders. Any motiveless murderer like a serial is very hard to catch.
But…we don’t have lots of cases where rich people wind up mysteriously dead. So there could be high-priced hitmen out there murdering annoying people for their wealthy clients…but if so there aren’t many of them. And remember that rich people have other methods of dealing with annoying people rather than murdering them…they’ve got lawyers, they’ve got underlings. They don’t have to deal with the annoying people like we do.
I haven’t been able to find a link, but for what it’s worth I read a statistic a while back that 90% of men and 80% of women fantasized about murdering someone.
I want to call cite on most of that, but everything you said does not invalidate the existence of high-dollar professional hitmen. Now there could be many arguments made for or against, but that we “don’t have the type of unsolved cases that would associated with hitmen” is not one of them.
In California alone there are about 5000 adults that go missing every year under unknown or suspicious circumstances. (according to the missing adults report [Warning: PDF]) Add to that the 2400 homicides a year in this state (from here ) compared to about 2000 homicide arrests a year (from here ) and you get quite a lot of people missing or violently dead unaccounted for.
Now since my understanding of murder for hire is that it’s best it not look like murder, we have to allow for the unknown factors of some of the other deaths being misidentified as suicides or non-violent. For example, for targets who use drugs, a drug overdose should not be too difficult to stage for somebody who knows what they are doing. Life isn’t CSI, and it’s not instantly obvious to a forensics expert if you got drunk, passed out and got injected with an overdose of heroin or if you got drunk, injected yourself with an overdose of heroin and passed out. It might be possible to tell in some cases, but most of the time - cause of death: accidental overdose. Same with hit-and-run, etc.
I want someone dead. I’d like to be there for the deadifying. Doesn’t mean I’d ever do it. But yes I do want someone dead. Slowly if at all possible.
The real world market for high priced hit men, who are real contract hit men and not simply criminals following the bosses orders is (IMO) vanishingly small.
1: First you have to come up with $ 50,000 or more in cash which is usually going to require serious wealth or liquidity.
2: Secondly (and this is an important real world consideration) you have to have a problem that simply giving someone $50,000 in cash to fix/solve/go away via non-violent means won’t solve.
3: Thirdly, you need to be able to access these “pros” via some contacts you have
4: Fourthly, you not only have to be have to be fairly well off, but you also have to be willing to take the risk/benefit gamble that killing this person will not land you in jail.
For all these requirements to interact into a " hire a pro htiman" subset is an incredibly small pie.
90% of men also fantasise about a threesome, but I offer that few of them have actually had one.
That’s it, you’ve misused the apostrophe for the last time! [starts loading shotgun]
True; I was talking about motivation, in response to the person who said they couldn’t imagine wanting someone dead.
Nah, before you do anything rash, you should hire a hitman and alice will have an “accident” instead. Something subtle, like tripping on a misplaced apostrophe and falling down the stairs or something.
It seems unlikely to you. Others, myself included, may think that (1) a lot of people seem to take the killing into their own hands, (2) Death for someone is really cheap, and the only ones who can likely afford to pay people for the sole purpose of assassination seem to be large governments. Mercenary companies may have people capable of assassination, but don’t seem to want to pay them just to sit around between that infrequent act. (3) There’s a lot of things in fiction that appear to have few or no counterparts in real life - demonic armies, worldwide satanist cabals, etc.
Do we have any examples of someone who really only made their living from murder and not mixing it with other criminal enterprises?
Just as an aside, and totally fictional take on this, try the Hitman (aka John Keller Mysteries) series of books by Lawrence Block - Hit Man, Hit List and Hit Parade. Funny, and with an everyman pro hitter. Yes, I know it’s fiction, but damn, I could see a person like Keller existing.
Yes, there are.
For about 500.00 bucks I could find you a hit man …but wouldn’t. :dubious:
For about 50,000.00 bucks I could find you a hit man that would guarantees clean shot…but I wouldn’t. :eek:
I, also, wouldn’t pay either more than 50% up-front…just saying…even though I could.
I would never do either, ever 
…unless you, personally and purposely hurt my kids , grown guys now. Kill them and I wouldn’t hesitate to kill you…cause I could, 
…
This is just a lesson in * would and could *. Killing is so pas se’.
Peace, Love and Kind Thoughts…
tsfr
What is your evidence for this conclusion?