Contract killing

"Hitman" redirects here. For other uses, see Hitman (disambiguation).

For the 2008 film, see Contract Killers.

Contract killing is a form of murder in which one party hires another party to kill a target individual or group of people. It involves an illegal agreement between two or more parties in which one party agrees to kill the target in exchange for some form of payment, monetary or otherwise. Either party may be a person, group, or an organization. Contract killing has been associated with organized crime and with vendettas. In the United States, the gang Murder, Inc. committed hundreds of murders on behalf of the National Crime Syndicate.

Contract killing provides the hiring party with the advantage of not having to commit the actual killing, making it more difficult for law enforcement to connect said party with the murder. The likelihood the authorities will establish that party's guilt for the committed crime, especially due to lack of forensic evidence linked to the contracting party, makes the case more difficult to attribute to the hiring party.

It is also often used by individuals who do not have the fortitude to carry out the killing themselves, such as a spouse contracting the murder of their partner.

Legal issues

In the United States, the United Kingdom, and many other countries, a contract to kill a person is void, meaning that it is not legally enforceable. Any contract to commit an indictable offense is not enforceable under contract law. Thus, if a "hitman" takes the money but then fails or refuses to perform, the customer (or hiring partner) cannot sue for specific performance or for damages for breach of contract. Conversely, if the hitman performs the killing as promised but the customer refuses to pay, the hitman cannot sue the customer for monetary damages. Furthermore, both the actual killer and the person who paid the killer can be found guilty of murder. Indeed, the acts of merely negotiating and paying for a contract killing (that is never actually carried out) are themselves punishable as attempted murder, as they constitute the "substantial step" towards a crime that is essential for imposing liability for an attempted crime. In some U.S. jurisdictions with capital punishment, a contract killing may be a special circumstance that allows for the contractor as well as the killer to receive the death penalty. Criminal code statutes prohibiting "solicitation of murder" are also intended to curb contract killings.

Statistics

A study by the Australian Institute of Criminology of 162 attempted or actual contract murders in Australia between 1989 and 2002 indicated that the most common reason for murder-for-hire was insurance policies payouts. The study also found that the average payment for a "hit" was $15,000 with variation from $5,000 up to $30,000 and that the most commonly used weapons were firearms. Contract killings accounted for 2% of murders in Australia during that time period. Contract killings also make up a relatively similar percentage of all killings elsewhere. For example, they made up about 5% of all murders in Scotland from 1993 to 2002. According to America's Most Wanted, Walker County, Alabama is the #1 place in America to hire a hitman.

Notable cases

Perpetrators

Mad Dog Coll leaving homicide court surrounded by police officers, 1931

• Glennon Engleman, American dentist who moonlighted as a hitman
• Christopher Dale Flannery, reputed Australian hitman
• Salvatore 'Sammy the Bull' Gravano, an underboss
• Charles Harrelson, American hitman, father of actor Woody Harrelson
• Richard Kuklinski, American contract killer, linked to the murders of over 33 men and rumored to have murdered over 250 men
• Marinko Magda, Serbian hitman convicted for 11 murders, including a Hungarian family
• Alexander Solonik, Russian hitman who killed more than 30 Russian mafia bosses, and who was known for carrying a firearm in each hand
• Benjamin Siegel, a Jewish hitman who headed the Bugs and Meyer Mob and headed and was a hitman for Murder, Inc. Siegel was also the Italian mob's main hitman during Prohibition.
• Vincent Coll, an Irish-American hitman who worked for Dutch Schultz and Owney Madden.

Victims

• Li Fuguo, a Tang Dynasty Eunuch killed by a hitman hired by Emperor Tang Daizong.
• Shiori Ino, a 21-year-old University student killed by hitman Yoshifumi Kubota, who served 18 years in prison for the killing. He was paid by her ex-boyfriend and his brother; the case gained some notoriety in Japan.
• Grady Stiles, freak show performer whose family hired a hitman to kill him because of his abusiveness.
• Ji Yunqing, a Chinese Shanghai Triad boss affiliated with Wang Jingwei's puppet regime in the late 1930s murdered by BIS hitman Zhan Seng.
• Harry Greenberg, a Mafia associate of Charles "Lucky" Luciano, Meyer Lansky, and Siegel. He was killed by Siegel, Whitey Krakower, Albert Tannenbaum, and Frankie Carbo in 1939.
• Joe Masseria, was a Mafia boss that was murdered by Siegel, Vito Genovese, and Lepke Buchalter in 1931.
• Salvatore Maranzano, was a Castellammarese Mafia boss and rival to Masseria in the Castellammarese War and was killed by Siegel and several other men in 1931.
• Benjamin Siegel, Las Vegas mob boss and Flamingo Hotel owner, killed by unknown assailants in 1947.
• Anni Dewani was murdered by a hitman while on honeymoon in South Africa in 2010 in a case which garnered international notoriety. Her husband, British national Shrien Dewani, was tried and acquitted of being the mastermind behind the murder plot.

Employers

• Nicole Doucet Ryan attempted to hire an undercover Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer to kill her husband. After ruling she could not use the defense of duress, the Supreme Court of Canada ordered she not be retried.
• Tim Lambesis, former vocalist of heavy metal bands As I Lay Dying, Austrian Death Machine and Pyrithion, who attempted to hire someone to murder his wife through a contact at his gym. The alleged "hitman" turned out to be a police officer masquerading as a hitman.
• Silas Jayne, Chicago-area stable owner, was convicted in 1973 of hiring hitmen to murder his half-brother George.
• Mike Danton, former NHL player, hired an undercover federal agent to kill his sports agent.
• Italian crime boss John Gotti hired hitmen to murder Paul Castellano outside of Sparks Steak House; the murder was carried out in December 1985.
• Wanda Holloway: The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom is based on Holloway's hiring a hitman to kill the mother of a girl competing with her daughter at cheerleading.
• Lawrence Horn, record producer whose hiring of a hitman led to the case Rice v. Paladin Press
• Charlotte Karin Lindström, Swedish waitress/model who attempted to hire a hitman to kill persons testifying against her boyfriend in a drug trial in Australia.
• Pamela Smart of Derry, New Hampshire, who made national headlines in 1991 for hiring teenage lover Billy Flynn and his friends to murder her husband Gregory Smart.
• Wallace Souza, Brazilian television presenter who was accused of hiring hitmen to murder at least five people in 2009 to increase his programme's ratings.
• Ruthann Aron, convicted of hiring a hitman to kill her husband and a lawyer who had won a fraud case against her.
• Charles "Lucky" Luciano, American Mafia and Luciano crime family boss. Ordered Siegel, Tannenbaum, Genovese, Buchalter, Carbo, and Krakower to murder Mustache Petes Joe Masseria and Sal Maranzano in 1931, and stool pigeon Harry Greenberg in 1939.
• The Commission, American Mafia ruling body that ordered Siegel's murder in 1947.

In fiction

Main article: Contract killing in popular culture

Fictional cases of contract killing or "hitmen" are depicted in a range of popular fiction genres in the 20th and 21st century, including films, comic books and video games.

Well-known film depictions in crime films and action movies include:

• Charles Bronson's role as a hitman in the 1972 film The Mechanic
• Edward Fox's depiction of an assassin in the 1973 film The Day of the Jackal
• P. H. Moriarty and Doug Robinson as professional hitmen in the sci-fi film Outland (film) (1981)
• Jack Nicholson's portrayal in Prizzi's Honor (1985)
• Chester Malinowski plays the bit part of the hitman hired by Judah Rosenthal (Martin Landau) in Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)
• Jean Reno's charismatic hitman in Léon: The Professional (1994)
• John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson as a pair of hitmen in Quentin Tarantino's film Pulp Fiction (1994)
• Javier Bardem's portrayal as a ruthless assassin in the Academy Award-winning film, No Country for Old Men (2008)
• Luke Goss's portrayal of a professional Romanian hitman in Interview with a Hitman (2012)
• Antonio Banderas as a gun for hire in the 1995 Desperado (film)

Novels/Comic books: In Anthony Horowitz's Alex Rider (character) saga, a Russian named Yassen Gregorovitch, who worked with Alex's father John as a contract killer for S.C.O.R.P.I.A.

"Offbeat" or humorous depictions of hitmen have also been done in film, such as:

• John Cusack's portrayal of a hitman attending his high school reunion in the comedy film Grosse Pointe Blank
• Supercouple Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt depicting husband and wife assassins in the 2005 romantic comedy film Mr. & Mrs. Smith

Video games that depict contract killing include:

• Hitman
• Elder Scrolls
• Grand Theft Auto

See also

• Attempt
• Assassination
• Espionage
• Mercenary
• Murder, Inc.
• Organized crime
• Private military company
• Wetwork

References

• Nothing Personal, a television documentary series that focuses on stories of contract killings.

External links

• Murder-for-Hire: Web Hits of a Deadly Kind (FBI)