Listen Now: Kill List

Listen Now: Kill List

TrailerReleased Tuesday, 8th October 2024
Good episode? Give it some love!
Listen Now: Kill List

Listen Now: Kill List

Listen Now: Kill List

Listen Now: Kill List

TrailerTuesday, 8th October 2024
Good episode? Give it some love!
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Episode Transcript

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0:00

I'm Karl Miller, the host of the

0:02

podcast Kill List. One night, a

0:05

hacker breaks into a dark web murder

0:07

for hire site, uncovering a chilling

0:09

cache of documents called the Kill

0:11

List. It details hundreds of

0:14

names around the globe, complete with

0:16

faces, addresses, as

0:18

well as payments and instructions for their

0:20

murders. When a murder

0:22

disguised as a suicide shakes a quiet

0:25

suburb, a hacker connects the victim to

0:27

the Kill List. When local

0:29

police slow to act, he turns to

0:31

an unsuspecting investigative journalist to help. That's

0:34

me. When law enforcement

0:36

decide not to investigate, our team is

0:38

forced to take matters into our own

0:40

hands. A decision that

0:42

plunges us into a high-stakes race to

0:45

warn those whose lives are in danger.

0:48

And it turns out, convincing a total

0:50

stranger that someone wants them dead is

0:53

not easy. I'm about to play

0:55

a clip from Kill List. Remember

0:57

Kill List on the Rondry app or wherever you

0:59

get your podcasts. All

1:07

right,

1:11

you ready? Yeah. It's

1:13

a Thursday afternoon and I'm going to call with

1:15

one of my producers. The

1:17

road outside my house is almost

1:19

totally silent. On my

1:22

computer, I open Chris' document. Oh,

1:24

wow. There's a lot on here. Yeah. Chris

1:27

has run me through the orders, but this

1:29

is the first time I've got my hands

1:31

on the Kill List itself. It's

1:35

a long spreadsheet of names,

1:37

locations, telephone numbers.

1:40

So how many do we have? It looks like there's 85. On

1:44

this list. I scroll through the list. A

1:46

man from the US, a woman from Russia.

1:50

Alongside each name, there are contact details.

1:53

Service addresses, details of their movements,

1:55

and in most cases, there are

1:58

photos. The

2:00

photos are the thing that strike me

2:02

first a few dozen people staring out

2:05

at you as you open this document

2:08

In one a middle-aged man stands surrounded

2:10

by his family his light blue eyes

2:12

twinkle with a deep and joyful pride

2:14

in Another a woman tilts

2:16

her head as she smiles shyly at the

2:18

camera over rimless glasses. She's

2:20

somewhere glitzy She looks relaxed and

2:22

happy The thing that's

2:24

so striking about these photos is that they look

2:27

like they've all been taken from the social media

2:29

They look like kind of mainly Facebook profiles. So

2:31

they're they're the ones that you decide to put

2:33

on your profile picture Yeah, they're nice

2:36

photos. Yeah, and it's I

2:39

mean, it's just a photo but They

2:41

all just sort of have this on, you know, they just don't

2:43

know and this is just sort of

2:45

looming over their head And they have no idea, you know Man,

2:49

this is awful This

2:51

list looks like any other Excel

2:54

spreadsheets. It's innocuous boring even

2:57

until you read the instructions listed against

2:59

each name These

3:23

are the messages written by whoever paid to

3:25

have these people Assassinated

3:28

their specifications for the hit Can

3:31

you kidnap silent and erase without a trace

3:33

killer nurse in type a I guess we

3:35

don't know the backstory but like a nurse

3:38

I want her to be killed. They should see

3:40

she's dead because of accident Kidnap

3:43

family in Hong Kong. Can we say 15

3:45

Bitcoin for hit with a car and ensure

3:48

fatality? Mother needs to

3:50

die. Someone wants to kill their mom

3:52

killing unidentified women in Ottawa Kill a

3:54

woman who permitted sexual abuse. Mr. Lehman

3:56

45 years old Jesus,

3:59

man This is terrible. Just like these are

4:01

really possibly 85 really serious

4:03

crimes just staring back at us. Yeah.

4:06

I mean, this is conspiracy to commit murder. Ethically

4:13

this is the hardest thing

4:16

to cover that I've ever tried to do. And

4:19

for sure, I mean, this is a ethical bomb waiting

4:21

to blow up in our faces if we don't do

4:23

this correctly. Yeah, I don't know, man. It looks like

4:25

a big Pandora's box that we're

4:28

opening. And once you open it, it's open, man.

4:30

I don't think we can put it shut. The

4:34

thought of what could go wrong if I

4:36

meddle with this is terrifying. But

4:38

so is the thought of what could happen if

4:40

I do nothing. So

4:47

I start with the obvious step. I'm

4:50

quite nervous, honestly. I wasn't able to sleep that

4:52

well. I don't know why. It

4:55

suddenly makes it a lot more real. And it's just

4:57

a spreadsheet at the moment. And it's about to turn

4:59

into a crime. I'm

5:01

about to phone the police and hand over

5:04

my information. Chris

5:06

might have struggled with law enforcement, but

5:09

I've worked with the police before in my

5:11

reporting. I'm confident I can do better. After

5:14

all, this is a credible threat. How

5:17

hard can it be to get them to

5:19

take it seriously? All right. Should

5:22

I just do it then?

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