Endgame | 6

Summary

Kill List Episode 6: Endgame – Detailed Summary

Introduction: The Romania Raid and Initial Hope

The episode opens with Carl Miller, the host, recounting a significant breakthrough in the ongoing investigation of the "kill list" operated through a dark web murder-for-hire website known as "Hiresight." On April 6, 2022, Romanian police conducted coordinated raids across multiple homes in Southwest Romania, apprehending members of an organized crime group suspected of managing the site. This operation, reportedly at the behest of U.S. authorities, marked a pivotal moment in the investigation.

Carl reflects on his conversation with his producer, Caroline Thornham, immediately following the press release about the arrests:

Carl Miller ([02:00]): "This might be it. I never thought we'd know who Jura was… Romanian commandos striding into the flat of an Internet organized criminal group in Romania. I kind of can't believe."

However, this sense of accomplishment is short-lived as unexpected developments begin to surface.

Post-Raid Developments: Website Changes and Lingering Uncertainty

Despite the arrests, Carl receives an email from Chris, a member of his investigative team, indicating that the website "Hiresight" is undergoing significant changes:

Chris ([02:57]): "Changes being made to the site. Right now, someone is still running the website and making some security improvements. This doesn't feel like police action to me."

These alterations include the removal of hundreds of posts from the public forum and the introduction of new website features—changes unlikely to be orchestrated by law enforcement. This suggests that a member of the criminal group who evaded capture may still be controlling the site.

Carl and Chris discuss the implications:

Carl Miller ([06:58]): "It seems likely that they've missed at least one of the key players. Is that where we are right now?"

Chris ([06:36]): "Someone from the gang is changing key pages… new website features released."

The team becomes increasingly concerned that the operation to dismantle the site is incomplete, leaving room for the criminal activities to continue.

Struggles with Law Enforcement Engagement

Carl attempts to engage with various law enforcement agencies to gain clarity and assistance but encounters significant resistance and silence:

Carl Miller ([09:21]): "Our contacts there still won't talk to us. Neither will DHS, the Romanian police, nor the prosecutor's office."

Despite the publicized arrests, there is a lack of transparency regarding the apprehended individuals, fueling Carl's suspicions that not all key figures have been captured.

Case Studies: Jennifer and Anna

To illustrate the personal impact of the kill list, Carl shares stories of individuals affected by the site.

1. Jennifer's Story:

Jennifer's ex-husband, Ron, was arrested in April 2021 for placing a hit order against her. The ordeal was emotionally taxing, culminating in Ron's plea deal and subsequent incarceration. Jennifer recounts the courtroom experience:

Jennifer ([13:12]): "When he was being handcuffed and led out of the courtroom, he looked at my dad and said, I didn't do it."

She expresses a mix of anger and relief upon Ron's admission:

Jennifer ([15:51]): "I cried a lot because I was just mad that he put me through all of this… just a lot of emotion, of just anger, but also relief."

2. Anna's Story:

Anna was targeted with a $24,000 hit order to be killed in a car accident. Although a suspect was arrested, Anna remained unconvinced of their guilt. The investigation stalled, leaving her without closure:

Anna ([18:32]): "No, I don't regret and I don't prefer the ignorance because things could have gone worse if we didn't know what was going on."

Anna's ongoing struggle highlights the limitations of Carl's efforts, as many victims continue to await justice.

Emerging Leads and Renewed Hope

Months after the initial raid, Carl receives news articles indicating a surge in arrests tied to "Hiresight" in various countries, including the U.S. and Austria. These developments suggest that law enforcement agencies have refined their investigative methods, potentially operating independently of Carl's team:

Carl Miller ([23:12]): "Homeland Security received a tip-off… arrested someone who had placed an order… in May, a woman in Knoxville was arrested."

Chris hypothesizes that law enforcement may have seized the servers, allowing them to monitor and intercept kill orders directly:

Chris ([24:43]): "The only way this information could have been obtained is through a law enforcement agency seizing the server, monitoring it."

Subsequent arrests, including a notable case in Austria, demonstrate a coordinated international effort, albeit separate from Carl's initiatives. A supportive email from a British police officer acknowledges Carl's contributions:

British Police Officer ([26:00]): "You guys deserve full credit for highlighting this particular Dark Web threat through the work you have been doing."

This recognition offers a sense of validation and marks a turning point in the broader fight against the kill list.

Personal Reflections and Moving Forward

Carl reflects on the emotional toll of handling the kill list, describing the profound impact on his life and that of his team:

Carl Miller ([29:10]): "Grappling with the list has had a profound, probably lifelong impact on me and everyone in the small team we threw together to cope with it."

With the majority of high-profile arrests now secured, Carl acknowledges a shift in his role, moving away from active involvement with the kill list:

Carl Miller ([30:35]): "We don't hold it anymore. Me, Chris, Caroline, we've been a chapter in the story of the kill list. A chapter. There's now, thank God, come to an end."

However, the rarity of closure for many victims like Anna leaves a lingering sense of unfinished business and personal impotence.

Final Encounters: Meeting Elena

In a poignant segment, Carl meets Elena, a victim he previously helped. Their conversation underscores the resilience of those targeted and the emotional complexities of Carl's involvement:

Anna ([34:05]): "It just made me realize I can't take anything. Am I still standing?"

Elena’s unshaken spirit symbolizes hope amidst ongoing uncertainties:

Anna ([34:11]): "Anything that you throw at me, I'm just still standing."

Conclusion: A Year of Progress and Unresolved Challenges

By the episode's end, Carl summarizes the extensive impact of their efforts:

• Total Arrests: 34 across 11 countries.
• Convictions: 28 cases, totaling over 150 years of prison time.
• Impact on Victims: While many have found closure, numerous cases like Anna's remain unresolved.

Carl emphasizes the duality of their success and the emotional burdens carried:

Carl Miller ([30:50]): "Things have ended, but it just doesn't feel like an ending."

The episode concludes on a cautiously optimistic note, acknowledging the significant strides made against the kill list while recognizing the ongoing challenges faced by many victims.

Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Carl Miller ([02:00]): "This might be it. I never thought we'd know who Jura was…"
• Chris ([02:57]): "Changes being made to the site. This doesn't feel like police action to me."
• Jennifer ([15:51]): "I cried a lot because I was just mad… of just anger, but also relief."
• Anna ([18:32]): "No, I don't regret and I don't prefer the ignorance because things could have gone worse…"
• Carl Miller ([24:57]): "They should have been doing all of this. None of this should be us begging and pleading different agencies to take it on."
• British Police Officer ([26:00]): "You guys deserve full credit for highlighting this particular Dark Web threat…"
• Anna ([34:05]): "It just made me realize I can't take anything. Am I still standing?"
• Carl Miller ([30:35]): "We've been a chapter in the story of the kill list. A chapter."

Final Thoughts

"Endgame" serves as both a culmination and a reflection on the intricate battle against the dark web's most sinister operations. Through personal testimonies and the gradual unraveling of the criminal network, the episode paints a comprehensive picture of the relentless pursuit for justice amidst the shadows of the internet.

Transcript

[Carl Miller]

Wandery subscribers can binge all episodes of Chaolist early and ad free. Join Wandery in the Wandary app or on Apple podcasts. Outside the front door of a flat, a group of men in balaclavas are waiting. They're dressed in dark blue, with bulky bulletproof vests and heavy boots. Some of them wear helmets, others hold guns or heavy batons. An eagle crest on their sleeve marks them out as romanian Police. It's the 6th of April, 2022, Southwest Romania. One of the policemen hammers the door off its hinges, forcing his way inside. A startled man dressed only in a T shirt and a pair of boxer shorts is pushed face down in a hallway next to a drying rack. Loaded up with damp clothes, his pale bare feet peek out behind the officer kneeling on legs. That same day, at six other homes across the counties of Gorge and Honodwara, more officers break down more doors. Shortly after, the Romanian authorities release a video of the raids and announce that at the request of the United States, they have arrested an organized crime group suspected of running a hitman for hiresight. So this is the moment I've been waiting for. Finally, it looks like someone has done something about the site and its mastermind, Yura. Now, for the first time, it really feels like an end is in sight.

[Caroline Thornham]

What a morning. Hey.

[Carl Miller]

Yeah, I mean, this might be it. I get on a call with my producer, Caroline, as soon as I see the press release. This day really never felt to me like it was going to come for so many reasons. Like, I never thought we'd know who Jura was. I never thought that we would be able to get anyone to act on it. But it is unbelievable to think that that chain of events, almost certainly that we've been involved with, you know, all these steps have kind of led to these, like, Romanian commandos striding into the flat of a Internet organized criminal group in Romania. I know, I kind of can't believe.

[Caroline Thornham]

We'Re here, like at this chapter, because.

[Carl Miller]

We'Ve always had that responsibility of what.

[Caroline Thornham]

Do we do with the site? So at least some of that is out of our control now.

[Carl Miller]

But that sense of relief doesn't last long. That evening around 8:30, I get an email from Chris.

[Chris]

Changes being made to the site. Right now, someone is still running the website and is making some security improvements. This doesn't feel like police action to me.

[Carl Miller]

If Chris is right, then Jura could still be at large.

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[Carl Miller]

From Wandery A Novel I'm Carl Miller. This is Kill List Episode six Endgame. I'm on the phone to Chris in the aftermath of the Romania raid, trying to find out what on earth is going on. All right, Chris, so after the arrest, when was the first time that you realized that the site was changing?

[Chris]

Somewhere between 12 and 24 hours after the arrest. There's a whole bunch of updates to the sites.

[Carl Miller]

Hundreds of posts in the site's public forum have been removed, and some of the pages on the back end of the site have been moved or removed altogether. These kinds of changes could only be made by someone in control of the site. There's no way this could be the police.

[Chris]

So I do not believe in any way, shape or form this is the police doing it. Doesn't make any sense. This looks to me like a member of the gang operating the website who wasn't arrested, changing the key pages that they knew about to lock out other members of the gang who could probably share that information with the police. There's literally even some new website features released.

[Carl Miller]

If this were the police or the Department of Homeland Security, you might expect to see changes to the security of the site, but you wouldn't expect to see new features is the main question. Who in the gang have they actually got? It seems like high confidence. They've got some people from that gang.

[Chris]

Yes.

[Carl Miller]

It seems reasonably low confidence that they've got everyone from the gang.

[Chris]

Definitely not.

[Carl Miller]

And it seems likely that they've missed at least one of the key players. Is that where we are right now? I mean.

[Chris]

Yeah. I don't feel anyone has got the complete picture of what's going on.

[Carl Miller]

Only one thing seems clear. We were right to suspect there could be multiple people running the site. Chris sifts through the site messages looking for clues about what might be happening. At first, there's just silence. And then three days after the raid, an administrator starts messaging again. One message catches our attention from an administrator to a customer called Time to Kill. Time to Kill had placed a hit, only to realize that no hitmen were coming. And now the admin was reaching out again, but with a very different proposition. Hi. Have you gave up the idea of killing your target when you was a customer? The admin admitted that the hitman for Hiresight was a scam. Then they made Time to Kill an offer. I can pay you to use the Jura interface to view all customers and fake hitmen and to do maintaining work. I can pay a fixed fee per month for this? If you promise you don't do anything wrong on the site. Yes, for sure. I'd be happy to work as an admin for you and manage the site. I'm interested and have the time to do this. How much are you thinking about for the fixed monthly payment? I'm thinking $400 per month in the beginning. If you help a lot with the site and we get lots of customers, this can be increased. Sounds good. So not only is admin activity restarting on the website, it seems like whoever is left running the site is bringing on more help. For every scammer who got arrested in the raid, it seems like someone else is willing to step in to keep the site running. I let the FBI know what we found, but our contacts there still won't talk to us. Neither will dhs, the Romanian police, nor the prosecutor's office. We do end up hearing from the head of the FBI's office in Romania.

[Jennifer]

As you sort of already expect, I cannot comment on anything specific.

[Carl Miller]

But you won't tell us anything that helps us understand what's going on? There are no charges announced, no hearings, and no news of any court proceedings. So we can't even check whether the two people in the IDs we were investigating were picked up in the raids. Considering that the Romanian authorities were so keen to publicize the arrests, this silence now is strange. And to make matters worse, there have been more changes to the site.

[Chris]

Two days ago, on Sunday, the server rebooted, and since then, I've lost access to most of the admin pages again. I don't know what to make of this. I've got access to the payments still.

[Carl Miller]

But not the messages. Our access has been heavily restricted. The messages with the crucial order details are now completely invisible to us. And if we can't see the orders, we can't help the targets. Chris can still piece together a few kill orders, but only if the customer wasn't wise enough to make a public post about the hit in a forum on the website instead of just messaging privately. We keep passing anything Chris sends through to our police contacts. But as weeks turn to months, the orders are few and far between. And then it happens. On New Year's Eve 2022, Chris loses access to the transactions section of the website. Now we can't see the payments or the messages. We're completely locked out. We get support from Uncommon Goods. Spark something uncommon this holiday with just the right gift from Uncommon Goods. It's a spot for incredible handpicked gifts for everyone on your list. Uncommon Goods has products that are high quality, unique, and often handmade or made in the us Meaning you're supporting artists and small independent businesses. So for me, I bought a gift for a friend who loves fruit, and the gift are these small woolen things that you put on the top of bananas to apparently keep them fresh for longer. Sounds a bit odd. I mean, definitely uncommon, but I genuinely think he'll love them. And with every purchase you make an Uncommon Goods, they'll give back $1 to a nonprofit partner of your choice. They've donated more than $3 million to date. To get 15% off your next gift, go to UncommonGoods.com list. That's UncommonGoods.com L I S T for 15 off. Don't miss out on this limited time offer. Uncommon Goods. We're all out of the ordinary. Now that we're locked out of the website, I finally have a moment to just catch my breath. It's the first time in two years that I've been able to focus on something other than the next kill order. The first time I've been able to stop and ask myself, what on earth have we been doing? And part of answering that question is to talk with the people we have been able to help. What did all these years of scrambling around, trying to help people really amount to. The first person I speak to is Jennifer. Hi there, Jennifer. How you doing? Hi. Good.

[Caroline Thornham]

How are you?

[Carl Miller]

Good to see you again.

[Jennifer]

Good to see you, too.

[Carl Miller]

Her ex husband, Ron, was arrested in April 2021 after placing an order on the site for her to be kidnapped and forcibly addicted to heroin. Not surprisingly, the press had a field day.

[Jennifer]

It's weird to think that, oh, I'm the estranged wife in this story, like, out of all people in Spokane, Washington. Like, I don't know, it's just. It's kind of an odd, odd feeling.

[Carl Miller]

On June 11, 2021, Ron appeared for a detention hearing at the Spokane Federal Court. The prosecuting team told Jennifer it might help the case if the judge could put her face to the story. So she and her dad went, and.

[Jennifer]

I think he was shocked that we showed up.

[Carl Miller]

Ron made eye contact with Jennifer across the courtroom.

[Jennifer]

He was staring at me. He would kind of look at my dad and I with, like, this pitiful face, like, I didn't do this type of face, you know, like, I can't believe I'm still in jail. And at one point when he was being handcuffed and led out of the courtroom, he looked at my dad and said, I didn't do it.

[Carl Miller]

Ron pled not guilty. He was going to fight all the charges against him, but Jennifer was ready for that fight, too. She kept going back to court again and again and again to show Ron she wasn't afraid.

[Jennifer]

There was a few times where I was sitting outside of the courtroom after the hearing, and he'd have to walk past me to go to the elevators when he was handcuffed, and we would be just inches away. And it didn't bother me. I don't know, it kind of made me feel empowered.

[Carl Miller]

Ron's attorney argued that the order messages were inadmissible and that Ron was improperly interrogated when they intercepted him at the airport. But that wasn't Ron's only strategy from jail. He wrote a letter to Amanda, the woman he'd been seeing when he was married to Jennifer. I want us to be married. We can do that now, even with me in here. Importantly, if we are married, we can decide if you testify or not. Ron told Amanda he wouldn't make her sign a prenup, and he'd pay for Amanda's kids to go to private school. At the end, he added, P.S. if you love me now or have ever loved me, burn this letter and do not mention it to anyone. Amanda didn't take him up on his offer. Instead of burning it, she passed the letter to the prosecution. Over a year after his arrest, with the evidence against him still mounting, Ron took the stand. Jennifer was in the courtroom that day.

[Jennifer]

The judge asked him to say in his own words, what did you do? And he started off saying, well, I was a broken man. And the judge said, that's not what I want to hear. I want to hear what you did. And he said that he had gone on there and hired people to try to cause harm to me. I cried because I was shocked that he actually said I wrote those horrendous messages. And I thought, wow. And my dad was crying, too. I was also angry. I ended up taking the day off of work, and I cried a lot because I was just mad that he put me through all of this for a good year and a half of claiming his innocence and saying that my allegations are false and inflammatory, and he was acting like the victim this whole time, and this whole time, he knows he did it. So it was a lot of emotion, of just anger, but also relief.

[Carl Miller]

Ron took a plea deal. He was sentenced to eight years in prison. But not every case I've passed to the police has had such a neat resolution. Hi, Anna. So good to see you.

[Caroline Thornham]

She's there with her dogs.

[Carl Miller]

I'm on a call with Anna Ann Esperanza, the reporter who helped us track Anna down. Back in late 2020, someone had paid around $24,000 for Anna to be killed in a car accident. The police arrested a suspect in December 2020. We can't name them for legal reasons, but Anna always doubted they were the real person behind the hit. When the police announced they'd finished their investigation, it looked like Anna might get some answers.

[Caroline Thornham]

But now it's completely stopped. Nothing new. She doesn't have a date for the trial. She called the Civil Guard and complained about it because they have had zero results since the last time we spoke. And she's complaining about how the Spanish justice works.

[Carl Miller]

Anna can only speculate about the motive behind the hit. Can this end for you, Anna? Like, are you able to get closure, or is this just something which has been dragging on for you?

[Caroline Thornham]

I still think there's more people in this case, and the real masters of this case are still out there, free. It made me change, and the biggest change it has been in my security because I was never scared or afraid of what would happen to me. But since this case, I don't have that safety on my own, and I get scared easily.

[Carl Miller]

Do you Wish that you had known about the order or not, because I know that us telling you about this probably in no small degree caused the emotional angst that you went through. So there's a genuine kind of ignorance is bliss possibility here. My question, I guess, to Ana is were we to go through that time again whether she'd have rather us actually not decided to tell her about it?

[Anna]

No, no es culpa.

[Caroline Thornham]

No, I don't regret and I don't prefer the ignorance because things could have gone worse if we didn't know what was going on. I know it was a scam, but it could have been truth. It could have been really something dangerous. And the good part is that I got to know the truth and to know you.

[Carl Miller]

Well. Anna, thank you. I'm so sorry about this case for you. I mean, this is such a horrible one where the people doing this can still remain in the shadows. You know, it's never been possible really to get closure, but it's always been so nice to talk to you. And despite the horrendous subject matter that we've had to discuss, I wish you all the best.

[Caroline Thornham]

All the best.

[Carl Miller]

Bye bye.

[Caroline Thornham]

Thank you.

[Carl Miller]

Bye bye. It's hard not to feel frustrated that justice isn't moving quicker for Anna. Living under the uncertainty of not knowing whether the person who tried to kill you will be brought to justice must be utterly draining. And Anna isn't the only person going through that right now. So far, I've only been able to tell you about a handful of the lives touched by the kill list. In total, my team and I have passed over 175 kill orders to law enforcement agencies around the world. But only a minority of them have resulted in an arrest or a conviction. Anna is representative of the majority of the cases where people still haven't got the answers, nor perhaps the safety they were looking for. Having the kill list taken out of my hands is something I have to accept. The years of dealing with it have been terrifying, but at least I had the power to actually make a difference. Now there's a feeling of impotence. I can't warn any new people on the list. I can't help any of the targets I do know about find justice. And I can't force the police to take control of the site. Things have ended, but it just doesn't feel like an ending. But then one morning, I've just finished eating breakfast, ready to start my day job writing articles and giving talks on tech subjects far less grim than the kill list. When I open up my Inbox. It's a link to some news and it's going to answer almost all the questions that I have about what happened to the kill list.

[Caroline Thornham]

Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co founder of Angie. When you use Angie for your home.

[Jennifer]

Projects, you know all your jobs will be done well.

[Caroline Thornham]

Roof repair, done well.

[Jennifer]

Kitchen sink install, done well. Deck upgrades, done well.

[Caroline Thornham]

Electrical upgrade, done well. Angie's been connecting homeowners with skilled pros for nearly 30 years. So we know the difference between done and done well.

[Jennifer]

Hire high quality Certified [e-mail].

[Carl Miller]

At first glance, what Chris has sent me is a News article. In April 2023, the Department of Homeland Security received a tip off from a foreign law enforcement agency. It needs to seem random or accident or plant drugs. Do not want a long investigation. The article announced the arrest of someone who had placed an order on jura's website totaling $9,750 for the murder of a woman in Prattville, Alabama.

[Jennifer]

She recently moved in with her new husband.

[Carl Miller]

She works at home in an office. They have three dogs that bark and jump, but nice jobs. Using the order details, Homeland Security managed to obtain a phone number that had been used to buy the bitcoin for the hit. Photographs from an ATM used to buy the cryptocurrency confirmed the identity. On 18 May, a woman in Knoxville, Tennessee was arrested. It's the same murder for Hiresight. We've been monitoring the same back end messages, the same accusation and the same methods of investigation, but with one difference. We didn't pass this case on. We've been locked out of the site for months. I'd never seen these messages. However Homeland Security got this information, it wasn't through me or my team. I get on a call with Chris to try and figure out what might be going on.

[Chris]

I believe the only way this information could have been obtained is through a law enforcement agency seizing the server, monitoring it. And with that server access, of course you can extract information however you need to.

[Carl Miller]

Chris believes the police have figured out their own way into the hitman for hiresight. If Chris theory is correct, it doesn't matter whether Jura or his accomplices are still at large. The police would still be able to intercept every kill order.

[Chris]

They should have been doing all of this. None of this should be us begging and pleading different agencies to take it on, right?

[Carl Miller]

Yeah, I suppose we'll kind of have to sit and wait and watch to see whether this replicates itself. We don't have to wait long. Only weeks later, Chris sends over Another article, it's a new arrest, this time in Austria. The article says a man was arrested for trying to hire a hitman to kill his wife after a tip off from the British authorities. Again, it was about the website we were tracking. Again, we had nothing to do with the case. The Austrian authorities report that 130 investigators and five different police agencies were involved in the operation. The scale of it is staggering. It's in stark contrast to the sort of reactions I got from police when I first started handing over these kill orders. A few weeks later, my producer Caroline gets an email. It's from a British police officer from dice, the Dark Web Intelligence Collection and Exploitation Unit. She calls me so we can read the email together. Okay, here we go. All right. It says, forward hitman, dark web. It says, morning, guys. Hope you're well. I just wanted to. Whilst I cannot talk about ongoing operations, I know that in the past you've struggled to perhaps always elicit the response from law enforcement that might have been warranted. Hopefully when things do get reported like this, it gives you some assurance that this crime type is now being taken seriously. It is you guys who deserve full credit for highlighting this particular Dark Web threat through the work you have been doing. Oh, wow, that is really sensational news.

[Caroline Thornham]

I mean, it feels good, doesn't it?

[Carl Miller]

It's about as much of a nod and a wink and another nod and another wink as you can get. They're in the market to have someone else keeping an eye on this, actually properly, in a way that's not just.

[Caroline Thornham]

We'Ll take cases whenever you send them.

[Carl Miller]

But in a way that is proactive and in a way that probably always should have been. Well, I've become used in this world to never being very sure about anything. There's so many greys and murkinesses, isn't there? And, you know, this actually is about as clear as you could ever get of them saying, hi, we're in, and we're in because of the stuff that you've all done. That is as much a ending of this chapter, maybe of this story as we can get. Since this began all the way back in the middle of 2020, there have been 34 arrests across 11 countries. In 28 of these cases, the suspect has already been convicted. So far, over 150 years of prison time has been handed down. The kill list has offered me a window into the cruelty people are capable of when they think nobody's watching. The people behind the orders, just like their targets look like you and me, they live ordinary lives. Or at least it seems that way from the outside. But they're willing to do something almost none of us are. To have another human life snuffed out. I've seen all kinds of motives. Money, jealousy, fear, lust. But to me, it seems what really drives most customers to Euro is a desire for control. Control over a person, over a situation, over a relationship. The moment they order the hit is often also the one where they feel that control slipping. They're spiralling. And this is their desperate attempt to finally claw back command. I wasn't prepared to bear witness to all of that. Every time I sat down to open my email, I'd face a prospect of a new kill order sitting there in my inbox. New payer, the subject would announce. And then one click and I'm launched back into a world brimming with violence and fear. My team and I did our best. We never had enough information. We never had enough time. And the stakes, they were always ludicrously too high for it to ever feel normal. To be in situations where what you do can be a matter of life or death is, well, for me at least, traumatizing. Not that I'm a victim in this story, far from it. But grappling with the list has had a profound, probably lifelong impact on me and everyone in the small team we threw together to cope with it. The kill list still exists, and whilst it continues to save lives, long may it. But we don't hold it anymore. Me, Chris, Caroline, we've been a chapter in the story of the kill list. A chapter. There's now, thank God, come to an end. With the police now, in all likelihood operating their own international investigation to the site, it feels like finally we can move on. Yeah, yeah.

[Chris]

I just want to talk to you.

[Carl Miller]

About what it is that we're about to do. For something to have begun on the darknet, a realm which is so digital and so anonymous and you can hear, like now we're in the physical world and there are pigeons and there are tourists. There's traffic all around us and there's people cycling. It's a sunny day in London and I'm at the busy tourist hub of Marble Arch. Elena, the first person on the kill list I was able to actually help, is in town. You had a nice time.

[Anna]

We arrived here early yesterday morning and we're going back late tomorrow night.

[Carl Miller]

We find a table outside a cafe on a side street and sit down. Elena smiles as she peers at me over the rims of her glasses. When did we last speak? Over. Over A year ago, isn't it?

[Anna]

More than a year.

[Carl Miller]

Much more. Well, it's very weird to meet someone in those circumstances. And now to be in a place which is so normal and so conventional.

[Anna]

Yeah, exactly.

[Carl Miller]

Elena is as matter of fact as ever.

[Anna]

It would actually have been quite easy to kill me. He could have followed me universally, park my car and just wait there. Just shoot through the window. I read. I read a lot of thrillers, so.

[Carl Miller]

Well, I mean, you don't need to. I mean, sometimes life is stranger than fiction, right? I mean, you've lived through a Twitter. You don't need to. Don't need to necessarily just read about it.

[Anna]

Yeah, but I do. I love it.

[Carl Miller]

The last time I spoke to Elena was after her husband, who were calling Bruno, had been arrested. That was when the police discovered he'd rented a room full of weapons near our house. I had nightmares about that room and about Bruno. I can remember the tension in her voice then. I always thought she was tough and practical, but I'd never heard her sound happy. Now Elena is ticking things off her bucket list. That's why she's here in London. The night before she went to see Phantom of the Opera. And she's booked two days of back to back afternoon high teas at the Ritz and the Torchester hotels.

[Anna]

And in September, I'm going to Brazil.

[Carl Miller]

Oh, my God.

[Anna]

Amazonas.

[Carl Miller]

Oh, my God.

[Caroline Thornham]

Yeah.

[Anna]

I always wanted to do that. I wanted to do that 30 years ago. And that's also been very long on my pocket list.

[Carl Miller]

Elena gathers her things and we walk back to the hotel together. White clouds pass quickly across the blue sky as people push past us in the building. Rush hour traffic. And by the way, just once again to reiterate how lovely it is to see you in such a great mood in the sun in London. Yeah. Saying my life has moved on. That's so wonderful to hear. Is have you learned anything from this?

[Anna]

It just made me realize I can't take anything.

[Carl Miller]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Am I still standing?

[Carl Miller]

Yeah.

[Anna]

That's what I think is surprising. You know, anything that you throw at me, I'm just still standing.

[Carl Miller]

If you like Kill List, you can binge all episodes ad free right now by joining Wondri in the Wandary 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 [e-mail] survey from Wandery and Novel. This is episode six of Kill List. Kill List is hosted by me, Karl Miller. It was written by me, Caroline Thornham. And Tom Wright. Our lead producer is Caroline Thornham. Our producer is Tom Wright. For Wandery. Our story editor is Chris Siegel and our senior producer is Russell Finch. Our assistant producer is Amalia Sortland and our researchers are Megan Oyinka and Lena Chang. Additional research from Chris Monteiro, Kuzmin Meyer, Attila Biro from the Context Investigative Reporting Project Romania and from Anik Mossou, Fouca Postma and Brenna Smith at Bellingcat. Additional reporting by Dylan Brogan, Rachel Christensen, Franziska Engelhardt from podcast Schmiede, Esperanza Escribano, Janina Findyson, Jonathan Glover, Jonathan Grubert, Amber Singer, Anna Holligan, Maru Lombardo and Rodrigo Rodriguez. From Loro Podcast, Adelie Pozman, Ponte, Alexander Ritchie, Shiroma Silva and Sarah White's Kodachek from Reckon South. Fact checking by Fendor Fulton. Our managing producers are Cherie Houston, Sarah Tobin and Charlotte Wolf for novel and Lata Pundia for Wandery. Original music by Skylar Gerdemann and Martin Linnebell Music supervision by Nicholas Alexander, Max O'Brien and Caroline Thornham. Sound design and mixing by Nicholas Alexander. Additional engineering by Daniel Kempson with special thanks to Mandy Gornstein, Alex Wade, Jason Phipps, Jeff Oswald, Joe Wheeler, Jake Utajevic, Saskia Edwards, David Waters, Neil Krishnan, Julia Bromberg, Carly Frankel and all the team at wme. For novel, Willard Foxton is creative director of development. Our executive producers are Sean Glynn, Austin Mitchell, Max O'Brien and Craig Strachan. For novel. Executive producers for Wandery are George Lavender, Marshall Louis and Jen Sargent. When you're done with the first six episodes, I go deeper into the kill list, revealing never before told stories of more victims. New episodes roll out weekly. Thank you for listening.