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how did you first meet Mildred horn I was retained to represent her child who was severely disabled in a lawsuit
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against a Washington D.C hospital for medical malpractice Howard Siegel he's a lawyer and the case
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he's talking about took place in 1990 after a baby named Trevor Horn was injured while undergoing a procedure in
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the hospital the hospital's respirator failed and Trevor Horn suffered severe brain damage
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he became paralyzed and would need a breathing tube and 24-hour nursing care for the rest of his life
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the family sued the hospital I represented the family in that lawsuit and what was the result of the lawsuit it
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was a multi-million dollar settlement nearly two million dollars to pay for Trevor's Medical Care
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Trevor's mother Mildred horn was a single parent living in Silver Spring Maryland she was Raising Trevor and his
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two sisters Mildred's family lived nearby and a nurse named Janice Saunders spent every night in Trevor's room
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watching over him this family was just totally committed to making this child's life
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um as as comfortable and as loving as as was possible now his mother Mildred horn
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and her husband Lawrence Horne were separated and eventually divorced and and the father was at that time living
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in L.A and he was a sound engineer for Motown after he and Mildred split up he had little contact with their children
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until he heard that his ex-wife was suing the hospital when the trial started Lawrence horn
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flew from California to be there just after opening statements the hospital's lawyers approached Howard
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Siegel and offered to settle the case out of court Mildred horn accepted their settlement
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offer Lauren's horn wasn't happy about it Mr horn turned to me and he said that's not enough
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and I said well what are you talking about and he wrote down on a yellow uh sheet it was a a legal yellow pad and
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he wrote down a million dollars times 10 percent which is a hundred thousand dollars a
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year he said I came here looking for this amount of money for me and my jaw just dropped open
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um and I said what makes you think that you're entitled to a nickel of this child's
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money and he looked me right in the eye and he said Trevor lives through me and I'll just never forget that moment
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as long as I live because I went out in the hall and I I said to my co-counsel I have never seen anything like this man
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[Music] oh three years later early in the morning on March 3rd 1993 Mildred Horn's sister
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went over to the house as she often did and found the garage door open and Trevor's medical monitor alarm going off
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police found Mildred horn dead just inside the front door in Trevor's room police found that his life support
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system had been disconnected his nurse Jana Saunders had been shot three times the other children were safe they'd
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spent the night somewhere else the house had been turned upside down and the car was missing
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I was driving at work and I heard the news that Mrs horn and Trevor and their nurse had
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been murdered and I didn't even blink I just I it's Larry horn there was not a question in
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my mind that Larry horn had somehow perpetrated this murder police officers in Los Angeles were sent
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to question Lawrence horn immediately after the bodies were discovered and they found a piece of paper in his
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pocket that had an airline flight number and flight times written on it Mildred horn was a flight attendant and those
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numbers matched the flight she was scheduled to work the day she was murdered police obtained a warrant to search his
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apartment they took computers videotapes recording equipment and whatever papers
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they could find but none of it linked him to the murders seven weeks passed they were still
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unable to make an arrest even though Mildred Horn's family and friends were absolutely certain it was Lawrence horn
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Howard Siegel was certain even the judge from the hospital malpractice case told
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police that Mr horn had been unusually interested in the settlement money but there wasn't any evidence and
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Lawrence horn had an alibi a good one at the time of the murders he was on the other side of the country in his
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apartment in Los Angeles with his girlfriend about two months after the murders Lawrence horn agreed to an interview
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with the Washington Post he said he was grieving the loss of his ex-wife and son
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and unequivocally denied having anything to do with the crime for me to do that I would be dead now he
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said I would not be living on because what would be the purpose I'd be a monster
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I'm Phoebe judge this is Criminal [Music] Maryland police investigated the case for the next 16 months a spokesperson
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called it the most exhaustive and labor-intensive investigation in the Department's history they tapped
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Lawrence horns phones and if I'm not mistaken they figured out Lawrence horn had a pay
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phone near his house in Los Angeles and they put a tap on that phone they figured out he was smart enough not to
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have been using his own phone to contact whoever he was in cahoots with in this and they found out he had been
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communicating with a guy in Detroit named James Perry police found 136 calls between Lawrence horn and this man James
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Perry they got a warrant to search Perry's House in Detroit and in the house they found a book and the book was
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titled Hitman a technical manual for independent contractors which was essentially a how to commit
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murder book what do you mean a how to commit murder well that's what it was it was a a
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murder manual it was a it was a publication that would teach anyone who was so inclined
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what steps to go through to commit a murder and get away with it the author of Hitman a technical manual
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for independent contractors was someone named Rex Farrell the book was published
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in 1983 by Paladin press they they ordered the book law enforcement ordered the book from Paladin press
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and when they started to go through it and compare it to what they had found out took place in the crime they were
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able to find 27 instructions that Perry followed and these aren't instructions like run and hide or be
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careful these were very specific instructions I mean I am so surprised that people
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actually hire Hitmen I thought it was just something we see in the movie oh it's it's amazingly common
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um husbands hire Hit Men to kill their wives wives hire Hit Men uh to kill their husbands business deals go bad you
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know I don't want to say it's a common occurrence but it's much much more common than you would ever imagine
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[Music] Paladin press the publisher of this Hitman manual was owned by a former Army
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Ranger named Peter Lund Who Sold books primarily through mail order catalogs and at gun shows
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the best-selling title in paladins catalog was a guide to shooting someone at long range from a hiding place it's
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called the ultimate sniper they published a book called be your own and Undertaker how to dispose of a dead body
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uh then they they published how to make a homemade flamethrower smuggling made easy
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had a rip off a drug dealer kill without Joy the complete how to kill book how to destroy Bridges
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their book homemade C4 a recipe for survival was reportedly read by Timothy McVeigh before he made a truck bomb that
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killed 168 people in Oklahoma City Hitman a technical manual for independent contractors had sold more
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than 13 000 copies by the time James Perry ordered his own how closely did James Perry follow the instructions and
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okay think of a complicated recipe that you get in a cookbook with 12 steps in it okay and if you want to
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make these cookies you have to follow these 12 steps exactly the way it's described
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or the cookies will not turn out James Perry followed 27 steps in this book in committing this crime
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and it was truly a recipe for murder foreign [Music] police figured out that Lawrence horn
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was planning to pay James Perry from Trevor's settlement money the almost 2 million dollars he expected would come
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to him after he arranged to have his wife and son killed but mildredhorn's sisters weren't going
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to let that happen they filed the lawsuit of their own blocking Lawrence horn from receiving
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anything from his son's estate so James Perry had been hired to do a job and had done it but had not been
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paid he kept calling Lawrence horn and asking for his money it was these repeated phone calls going
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on for months that brought them both down they were each indicted on three counts
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of first-degree murder and one count of conspiracy actually testified in both cases I
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wonder when Lawrence horn saw you walking into the courtroom if he thought to himself oh no
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well I think Lawrence horn knew what I was going to say he knew I was going to relate that incident that happened in
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the courtroom um which I did and uh any father that would come to a trial like that concerned with
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how much money he was going to get uh when his son was you know profoundly disabled and needed
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the money desperately to take care of his daily needs um it's just evil incarnate
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did he look you in the eye did you make any gun oh yes what was his reaction as you were
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testifying well there wasn't much of a reaction Lawrence horn had uh not not the slightest feeling of guilt for what
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he did none Lauren's horn was sentenced to four consecutive life sentences James Perry
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was sentenced to death and while that's the end of part of the story it's just the beginning of a whole other part
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I was just astounded that such a murder manual could be published so um I ordered a copy myself
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and started looking into it and it didn't take me long to reach the conclusion that something had to be done
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um I called my dear friend and co-counsel John Marshall and I said we've got to do
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something about this and and you know we got together and I still remember we had a meeting in
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the Montgomery County Library a law library and um I I looked at the book and we talked
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about the First Amendment and I remember very clearly saying John uh this [ __ ] can't be covered by the first
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amendment that was my exact quote it just can't be and um we just felt very strongly that this was
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not the what the framers of the First Amendment had in mind when they decided to protect free speech
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in 1996 on behalf of Mildred horns two surviving daughters Howard Siegel filed a civil lawsuit against Paladin press in
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federal court in Maryland arguing that the book aided and abetted the wrongful death of Mildred Trevor and the nurse
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Jana Saunders how did you feel this book differed from other pieces of entertainment depictions
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of violence and that's a great question um when Tom Clancy publishes a book that
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has a detailed descriptions of how someone made a bomb his intent is to entertain
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he doesn't intend that people will misuse his book and commit crimes so when someone takes a Tom Clancy book
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and learns enough in it to perpetrate a criminal act he is misusing Tom Clancy's book He's
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not using it as Tom Clancy intended with Hitman a technical manual for independent contractors the people who
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were buying it and using it were using it exactly precisely the way the author and the
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publisher intended that it would be used and you can read the beginning of the book you know it says this is all you
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need to become a successful Hitman they were offering a correspondence course in how to commit murder
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and that's not protected by the First Amendment if a criminal came to me and said I want
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to learn how to do burglaries and I said well here's what you do you know here's how you break in here's
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how you get away with it well I'm going to jail for eating and abetting so what is the difference between doing
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it in in something that has a cover and pages as opposed to doing it orally you're still teaching people to commit
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crimes chocolate chip cookies are gonna get made if you distribute the recipes Howard is
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certainly capable of hyperbole Tom Kelly was hired to defend Paladin press in the lawsuit he calls himself a
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press lawyer he's defended the rights of journalists and publishing companies for
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more than 40 years and his version of the merits of the lawsuit are very different than ours the
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ultimate question was what role did this book play in the murder did it cause the
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murder or is this a murder that would have occurred regardless of whether the book
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had ever been published he also has a different take on the book itself I would describe it as something
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hard to take seriously [Music] some of the techniques described were fascinating some were Preposterous
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others were familiar as as someone who reads crime novels enjoys movies like The Godfather and so forth
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but in terms of true cold-blooded psychology it didn't impress me as very realistic
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Tom Kelly says that there are many instructions in the book that James Perry did not follow don't check into
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hotels in your real name James Perry did that don't make long-distance phone calls from the vicinity of the crime
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scene especially not to your employer James Perry did that too Tom Kelly also says that the
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instructions in the book are generic like wear gloves and shoot for the head there were similarities
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but relatively few that had any meaning whatsoever and it cannot be said that this book
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caused these murders to occur they were with a momentum of Their Own and the book If if anything was merely
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window dressing their position always no matter what I said was it's a book it's a book it's a
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book it's a book you can't sue a book the judge agreed he said yeah it's a book it's protected get out of here
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Howard appealed the decision to the U.S court of appeals for the fourth circuit the question can a book be responsible
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for what someone does with its content was controversial a number of media organizations came out
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in support of Paladin press including ABC and the New York Times the fear was that if Paladin was found
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responsible any novelist or journalist writing in detail about crime could be vulnerable to lawsuits
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I I'd imagine there would be a conflict in a juror's mind trying to weigh the harm caused to a human being versus harm
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done to an idea that's absolutely true and the only way to try this case was not to ask them to
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protect an idea but to abide by their oath and listen to the chorus instructions liability here
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requires causation in the sense that the murder would not have occurred but for this book ladies and Gentlemen please
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put on your investigator's trench coat and sift through these facts and see if that is borne out by them
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and uh we all understand what sympathy is all about in this situation but you took on
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a you know a greater human obligation when he took an oath to follow the law and facts in this case as the judge
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gives you the law and the facts as they're found by you and there's certainly no guarantee that
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that's going to win but I think it should foreign Did anyone say to you listen you're getting too personal this
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isn't your fight yes everyone um one of the things I face with this case um was that I had to put my practice on
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hold I mean it was all consuming um you know there were times where it actually scared me how much time I
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was spending and how involved I had become in this case and I I just had too much of myself wrapped up in this case
00:21:07
to lose it what did the four circuit judges say well uh judge ludic wrote a um as I recall a 63-page opinion so he
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said a lot and I think the basis of their opinion um was the argument that we advanced
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that said when speech is used as the vehicle to commit the crime it is not protected by the First Amendment
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and and I think that's all it boils down to is this is astoundingly obvious you can't Aid in a bet murder and claim
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the protection of the First Amendment [Music] favor of Howard and the horn family
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meaning Howard could move forward with a lawsuit against Paladin but one day before the trial began the publisher
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decided to settle the case out of court Paladin paid a confidential sum of money
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to the horn family and agreed to pull all copies of Hitman a technical manual for independent contractors from
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publication but it was picked up and put on the internet we couldn't stop that um and it's as far as I know it may be
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out there right now for anybody wants to read it where I have a I have a PDF of it sitting right in front of me yeah you
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can't put the genie back in the bottle the owner of Paladin press Peter Lund died last year and the Press shut down
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and Howard Siegel is now retired he says this is a case that's taught in law schools all over the country I think
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it left a good Mark on Mark that says Common Sense will prevail over ideology [Music]
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um and and over strict construction of the Constitution [Music] that's what lawyers do
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I have the utmost respect for everybody that was on Paladin's side I think they do important work and 90
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percent of the time maybe 99 of the time um I'm gonna join forces with those guys
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I'm gonna March arm and arm and protect the First Amendment not this time [Music]
00:23:47
foreign Spore Nadia Wilson and me audio mix by Rob Byers extra production help by
00:24:02
Crystal duhane matild erfelino is our intern Julian Alexander makes original illustrations
00:24:08
for each episode of Criminal you can see them at thisiscriminal.com or on Facebook and Twitter at criminal show
00:24:15
and we're very excited for you to check out our new show it's called This is Love You can find out more at this is
00:24:24
lovepodcast.com where you can subscribe we've got two episodes out now criminal is recorded in the studios of North
00:24:32
Carolina public radio wunc we're a proud member of radiotopia from PRX a collection of the best podcasts around
00:24:41
special thanks to adzerk for providing their ad serving platform to radiotopia I'm Phoebe judge this is Criminal
00:24:52
[Music]