The Doctor | 4

Speaker 1 Wandry Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of KO List early and ad-free. Join Wandry Plus in the Wandry app or on Apple Podcasts.
Hey, it's Carl here.

Speaker 1 I wanted to let you know that this episode contains references to suicide and descriptions of a coercive and controlling relationship.

Speaker 1 We've put some links with resources in the episode notes in case you're affected by the things we talk about in the show.

Speaker 1 Do you want to explain what's happening? Yeah, so alright, it's 2nd of April, it's Easter,

Speaker 1 and we're now all kind of scrambling to deal with the case which has frightened me more than any other one over the last year.

Speaker 1 Almost all of the orders I've been dealing with on the kill list so far have been for murders. But in the case of Scar 215,

Speaker 1 they want something I've never seen before.

Speaker 2 I want the target kidnapped for seven days. While being held, she will be given injections of heroin at least two times per day.

Speaker 2 It would be unfortunate if her older boy became addicted to heroin, or her dad be severely beaten, or her dog be slaughtered.

Speaker 1 I mean, I don't even have the words to describe this really, but kind of psychological torture contract to bend her will in such a way that she will go home back to her husband.

Speaker 2 Any and all persuasion should be used.

Speaker 1 The target is a woman called Jennifer.

Speaker 1 Our team springs into action and we begin to get a fix on her.

Speaker 1 She lives in the city of Spokane, Washington State, and works at a beauty spa.

Speaker 2 She works there every other Wednesday night and closes the business by herself around 7pm.

Speaker 1 We're getting better, I think, at reaching people on the list. But if the case in Switzerland has taught us anything, it's just how dangerous these cases can be.

Speaker 1 At least based on the order, SCAR215 has strong parallels to the Swiss case. An ugly divorce and what seems like a former romantic partner spiraling dangerously out of control.

Speaker 1 I can't help but notice just how many of our most serious cases have this dynamic.

Speaker 1 The order actually lays out a series of bonuses SCAR215 is willing to pay if the hitman can coerce Jennifer into a series of goals.

Speaker 2 One, Stop all court proceedings immediately. 10K.

Speaker 2 2. Returns back to her husband permanently for reconciliation of their marriage and relationship.

Speaker 1 3. Keep her mouth shut and tell no one.

Speaker 1 The list goes on. $30,000 worth of bonus criteria laid out in grotesque detail.
There's a real keen sense of urgency in the sender.

Speaker 2 This needs to be done around April 9th to the 18th.

Speaker 2 If it is done at this time and the goals are achieved, the payment will be doubled.

Speaker 1 Whilst we've been tracking Jennifer down, we've also traced the payments.

Speaker 1 SCARTING ON5 has already transferred the money for the kidnapping and all of the associated bonuses. $55,000 in total.

Speaker 1 It's the largest payment. we've ever seen.

Speaker 2 She is stubborn.

Speaker 1 The team will have to be very persuasive to get her to follow through with the goals.

Speaker 2 But I suspect your team can be just that. Very persuasive.

Speaker 1 My God, we need to act very quickly now to try and reach Jennifer. You know, this is it.

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Speaker 1 From Wandery and Novel, I'm Carl Miller. This is Kill List,

Speaker 1 episode four:

Speaker 1 The Doctor.

Speaker 1 Can you hear me? Hi there, yes, I can hear you. How are you doing?

Speaker 4 Good, how are you?

Speaker 1 Good, Jennifer. Thank you for jumping into this Zoom room.

Speaker 1 With the help of a local reporter, I've been frantically trying to track Jennifer down across Spokane to tell her about SCAR 215.

Speaker 1 So, for the last year, we have been doing an investigation into what we call contract violence websites. I left a message with one of Jennifer's colleagues at the spa and I told them it was urgent.

Speaker 1 And later that day Jennifer called me back.

Speaker 1 I'm so sorry Jennifer. Immediately Jennifer has a suspect in mind.

Speaker 4 He's trying to find ways to get custody of our son and he'll do whatever it takes.

Speaker 1 And just as we'd guessed, it's a former partner, Dr. Ronald Ilg, her estranged husband.

Speaker 4 He thinks he's invincible.

Speaker 1 They're separated, but their divorce hasn't been finalized yet. Would you think that Ron would be capable of doing you serious physical harm?

Speaker 5 I wouldn't put it past him at all.

Speaker 1 After we hang up, I send Jennifer the order messages, and one of my producers calls the local police in Spokane. They take our information and say they'll look into it.

Speaker 1 In the days that follow, whilst I wait to hear from the police, I keep talking to Jennifer to try and understand the situation we've stepped into. So when did you meet Ron for the first time?

Speaker 4 We actually met online, I think 2011.

Speaker 1 Jennifer had recently separated from her first husband. She was juggling her job at a healthcare company with looking after two young kids.
So, like lots of us do, she signed up to a dating app.

Speaker 1 Jennifer was swiping through the profiles when one caused her to stop.

Speaker 4 At first, I wasn't very interested because he's quite a bit older than me and he wasn't my typical type.

Speaker 1 His name was Dr. Ronald Ilg.
He messaged Jennifer wanting to meet, but for the first couple of months, she brushed him off.

Speaker 1 Finally, she decided to give him a chance, so the two of them arranged to meet for a glass of wine.

Speaker 1 When Ron arrived for the date, he was clean-cut and handsome, with dark hair neatly swept back.

Speaker 1 He was a lot more reserved than the guys Jennifer usually went for. But maybe different could be a good thing.

Speaker 4 He's definitely very smart. He comes off very professional, very charming.
I felt like he was genuinely interested in getting to know me.

Speaker 4 His dad was a janitor and his mom was a nurse. That's why he wanted to be successful because he grew up very poor.

Speaker 1 Ron had worked hard to get into med school where he specialized in neonatology.

Speaker 4 We took care of little preemie babies or babies that are withdrawing from drugs,

Speaker 4 like if their mom was an addict.

Speaker 1 After their first meeting, Ron kept up the charm offensive.

Speaker 4 He would text me all the time, you know, good morning and how was your day? And it was not what I was used to. That's when I started to like him.

Speaker 1 Ron took Jennifer out to dinner at a fancy fondue restaurant. Another time, he invited her over to dinner at his place.
He cooked a crab and they ate it in his living room in front of a roaring fire.

Speaker 1 Jennifer discovered that she actually had a lot in common with Ron.

Speaker 4 We trained and did half marathons, and we did a marathon and bodybuilding competitions. We were always doing things together and I thought we were the perfect couple.

Speaker 4 Eventually we moved in together and everything seemed to be great.

Speaker 1 Jennifer even joined Ron's Catholic Church. One day in 2015, the two of them stayed behind after a service.

Speaker 4 We went over to the pews over by the candles that you light for loved ones and he wanted to light a candle for my mom because my mom had passed away years ago.

Speaker 1 They prayed together by the flickering candlelight. Then Ron turned to Jennifer.
He held out a ring and asked her to marry him.

Speaker 1 A year later, Jennifer and Ron tied the knot with a full mass.

Speaker 4 Once you're married, it's when he really shows who he is.

Speaker 1 After the flowers and gifts were cleared away, after the guests were all gone, Ron began to change.

Speaker 1 First, he told Jennifer that he was into BDSM.

Speaker 4 And he kind of made it like, oh, it's just to spice things up when we don't have kids. And it didn't seem too alarming at that time.

Speaker 1 Then in 2018, two years into their marriage, Jennifer became pregnant with their son.

Speaker 4 He was very adamant about having a baby. And I think that's how he really gets the person to be stuck.

Speaker 1 Now that it was harder for Jennifer to leave him, Ron's demands increased.

Speaker 4 He wanted me to call him sir all the time, every day, all day, and then he'd get frustrated if I didn't want to do certain things that he requested me to do because it felt demeaning and it was humiliating.

Speaker 4 And so we'd fight about it all the time because I wasn't submissive enough.

Speaker 1 He installed cameras, cages, and ropes. He put a GPS tracker on Jennifer's car.

Speaker 1 One day, Ron handed Jennifer a drink.

Speaker 4 It looked like something was dissolved in it. It was cloudy and it tasted like a pill.

Speaker 1 Jennifer refused to drink it.

Speaker 4 And then when you would mention, you know, what did you put in my drink? He would just act completely dumb, like, what are you talking about? Why would I do that?

Speaker 4 I did find a little

Speaker 4 vials that he had a powder substance in. And so I did take one just in case I ever needed proof.

Speaker 1 A few months later, Ron told Jennifer he'd met another woman. on a BDSM site.

Speaker 4 She was into the dominant submissive stuff.

Speaker 1 I'm going to call her Amanda. That's not her real name.
But despite meeting Amanda, Ron didn't want to leave Jennifer.

Speaker 4 He was trying to force her into our marriage, basically telling me I have to accept her and I have to be her friend and he can be in love with more than one person.

Speaker 4 And it just became a crazy fantasy at that point. He's delusional.

Speaker 1 Jennifer resisted this new situation.

Speaker 4 She was definitely an enemy for a while.

Speaker 4 But then the more I talked to her and hear what she was going through, the more I was trying to help her and tried to let her know she needs to get out of the situation because I wouldn't wish the way he treats people on anybody.

Speaker 1 Finally, one day in the spring of 2020, Jennifer and Amanda sat down to compare notes.

Speaker 4 She said he put her in a hole in the yard.

Speaker 4 There's like a septic tank thing in his yard. She said that he put her down in there and put the top on

Speaker 4 and

Speaker 4 was threatening to leave her in there for hours.

Speaker 1 Ron had been telling Jennifer he was trying to find a way to let Amanda go gently. Amanda, however, told a very different story.

Speaker 4 He was trying to tell her that we were going to get a divorce. He would try to tell her I was crazy.
And we found out together by talking about what he was telling her and what he was telling me.

Speaker 4 And then we confronted him on it. And that's when he really got crazy.

Speaker 1 Is this the beginning of the end? Like, is this when he begins to completely unravel?

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 1 The two women met at Ron's house in an apartment above his garage. Jennifer and Amanda sat on the couch.
Ron sat across from them in a chair.

Speaker 1 When they challenged him about the lies he'd been telling them, Ron did not take it well.

Speaker 4 I was looking at him with a glare in my eyes, and he looked at me and said, If you come towards me, I'll knock you out on that couch.

Speaker 1 Jennifer, that must have been absolutely terrifying.

Speaker 4 Oh, it was, yeah.

Speaker 1 It was time to get out.

Speaker 1 In June that year, Ron traveled to Montana for a work trip. He was due to be away for 10 days.
Jennifer saw a chance and she took it.

Speaker 4 My sister drove up from Oregon and my dad came over and we just loaded up all of my stuff and left the day before he got back and I moved all my stuff back to my house and he got home and I was not there.

Speaker 1 Ron arrived back to find their house empty.

Speaker 4 He was doing everything he could to get me back, promising me counseling, promising me that he'll get rid of our post-nuptial agreement if I stay. I mean, just a bunch of empty promises.

Speaker 1 Jennifer filed for divorce, but that didn't deter Ron.

Speaker 4 He would just text like non-stop and call over and over and over.

Speaker 1 Jennifer wrote to the court, asking for an anti-harassment order to put an end to, quote, constant and incessant harassment.

Speaker 1 In response, Ron claimed that his behavior was simply, quote, a sad husband's last-ditch effort to remind his wife what their life could be if they worked things out.

Speaker 1 But Ron didn't stop. A couple months after she filed the harassment order, Jennifer was leaving the spa where she worked when she found Ron outside in the parking lot waiting for her.

Speaker 1 Jennifer filed a second anti-harassment order.

Speaker 1 That same month, Jennifer got a message from Amanda.

Speaker 4 She showed me text of them talking about how he had been on the dark web.

Speaker 1 Things between Amanda and Ron had been on and off. At the time, they were back together, but it wasn't going well.

Speaker 4 She was trying to get away from him because he was getting overly controlling, and she had found him on the dark web.

Speaker 4 And he'd admitted to her that he hired somebody to send me a message, but didn't tell her what it was and said that he cancelled it.

Speaker 1 Jennifer was on her guard. The dark web was a scary place, and she didn't know exactly what Ron was planning.
So she got in touch with her lawyer. That's when she noticed something strange.

Speaker 4 I was watching our bank account, and that's when I saw money being transferred in and then transferred out.

Speaker 4 I think it was a total of about a little over $10,000 recently that had come out of our joint account to this Moon Pay and one other one.

Speaker 4 I looked it up, and it's where you buy cryptocurrency.

Speaker 4 I was like, I'm sorry, I'm being overly paranoid, but I think something weird weird is going on, and that's when I was notified by you guys.

Speaker 1 When I first read SCAR215's messages, they were so unusual, so unsettling, because they weren't about killing Jennifer, but about using pressure, force, and drugs to completely control her.

Speaker 1 And as I listen to Jennifer, The way she talks about Ron seems to fit into this picture.

Speaker 1 A man with a fetish for domination, prone to coercion and controlling behaviour, who appears to be spiraling as he feels his grip on Jennifer slipping.

Speaker 1 A man who could be willing, as SCAR215 surely is, to do almost anything to force Jennifer back.

Speaker 1 And yet, by April 6th, three days since I disclosed the case to the police, there's still no news.

Speaker 1 We haven't heard anything fucking back from them, so I assume that that's still pinballing around in the local PD's

Speaker 1 bullshit excuse for a quick reaction team or triage team.

Speaker 1 For the last eight weeks, nearly every day has been like this. We'd already been laughed out of one police station in Spain.

Speaker 1 I've been helping a French waitress with an abusive stalker and alleged rapist who told me she'd struggled to have the police take an interest.

Speaker 1 A former Marine in Wisconsin told me he's terrified his ex-wife might murder their children if she found out the police knew anything.

Speaker 1 I've been trying to track down a Finnish TV personality who appears to have been targeted over a failed business deal and a South American artist locked in a feud with her family over a disputed inheritance.

Speaker 1 What I'm learning is that actually stepping into these scenarios is itself dangerously destabilizing. Ineffective police investigations are dangerously destabilizing.

Speaker 1 They create a shrinking window of opportunity that that one of these perpetrators will feel compelled to act within.

Speaker 1 I'm lying in bed every night, staring up at the shadows moving across my ceiling, thinking, I'm going to get somebody killed.

Speaker 1 I cannot keep doing this.

Speaker 1 I get an email. It's about Jennifer.
but it's not from the local police that I passed the case to, or anyone I've spoken to.

Speaker 1 It's from one of the most powerful intelligence and security services in the world.

Speaker 1 They've heard about what we're doing and they're asking for my help.

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Speaker 6 Ladies and gentlemen, for those of you traveling too waiting, just so a quick reminder, this is a very cold flight to do.

Speaker 1 At Spokane International Airport, the arrivals terminal is full of excited tourists with backpacks and baseball caps, weary parents who've just enjoyed a long-haul flight with their kids, business travelers with smart briefcases, and 10 FBI officers spread out across the airport.

Speaker 1 The FBI are here because a few days ago, Jennifer's lawyer got in touch with them and told them about our investigation.

Speaker 1 They reached out to me and I sent them everything I had on the kill order, every message. and the Bitcoin payments.

Speaker 1 The FBI's financial crime team quickly got to work to see if our information checked out.

Speaker 1 They obtained proof of crypto payments tied to the kill order, totaling just over $56,000.

Speaker 1 All of them coming from an account under one name, Ronald Ilk.

Speaker 1 Ron was in Mexico on holiday over the specific dates when Jennifer was due to get kidnapped. Possibly a deliberate alibi.
Now he's about to land back on US soil within reach of Jennifer.

Speaker 1 This is the moment of maximum danger.

Speaker 1 It's also the FBI's best chance to secure the evidence they need.

Speaker 2 So please make sure that you come up here and any roller base.

Speaker 1 As Ron's plane makes its way across the tarmac, two of the FBI agents, Christian Parker and Eric Barker, are standing under the fluorescent light to the arrivals gate. The tape is rolling.

Speaker 5 This is going to be really bad if we miss some plane out.

Speaker 1 They have a search warrant for Ron's devices and his luggage, but Ron is under no obligation to talk to them. A fact that Special Agent Christian Parker is only too aware of.

Speaker 5 That first interaction is pretty key. It's a voluntary interview.
We could not compel him to talk to us. He very easily could have said, Yeah, no, thanks.
I'm going to go get my luggage and go home.

Speaker 1 A steady flow of people begin to make their way through the gate. Christian catches sight of Ron and Amanda.

Speaker 8 Excuse me, sir. Dr.
Ills? Yeah.

Speaker 5 Can I speak with you for a minute?

Speaker 1 My name is Special Agent Parker with the FBI. Okay.
You made it a question. Could we visit with you in here?

Speaker 5 He showed no surprise. It was as if he was expecting for us to be there, just cool as a cucumber.

Speaker 1 Christian and Eric lead Ron into a small side room.

Speaker 8 Come on in here, if you would. This is Special Agent Barker.

Speaker 1 It's all nice and cordial.

Speaker 8 How was Mexico? It was fun. We had a good time.
Actually.

Speaker 5 We began to build a relationship or build rapport with him. Seemed very comfortable talking to us.

Speaker 1 But there's only so long the agents can dance around why they've come to the airport. They tell Ron they're there because some threats have been made against his wife.

Speaker 5 The plan was to start little by little. Hopefully he tells us things that we can catch him in a lie.

Speaker 8 Do you know of anybody that has any ill will against your wife or

Speaker 1 no?

Speaker 1 They ask Ron about Jennifer and what kind of a person she is. They ask ask about Amanda and her relationship with Jennifer.
Then they ask about his finances.

Speaker 8 What about

Speaker 8 the big thing, crypto these days?

Speaker 8 Do you have any crypto accounts? Yeah, I have a couple. Okay, where are they? Before I even go, should I have a lawyer? That's always up to you.

Speaker 8 Here's your call. Yeah, you're here of your own will.
If you ever want to get up and walk out, you're free to do that.

Speaker 5 When he asked for an attorney, that kind of changed things, and we had to shift and say, okay

Speaker 8 now we're going to execute this search warrant we're going to search your bags and search for your phone we have a search warrant federal search warrant yes not an arrest warrant we're not being arrested tonight

Speaker 1 yeah ron is about to hand over his phone and then he pauses and does something well i think at least utterly bizarre there's one thing that i will share with you there's something on the phone he says that he needs to share with them first i did put it on there

Speaker 8 over while I was in Mexico, and I'll just read it to you because you're going to see it anyway.

Speaker 8 And the reason I put it on there is because

Speaker 8 I was

Speaker 8 let me just read it to you.

Speaker 1 Ron opens up a document on his phone and starts to read.

Speaker 8 It says, I have occasionally visited the dark web over the last couple years and

Speaker 8 out of curiosity, looking at porn and

Speaker 8 then buying steroids. Okay, I'll admit that because I was part of competitive bodybuilding.

Speaker 1 He continues to list off other things he found on there.

Speaker 1 Market, selling recreational drugs, stealing credit card information, and more.

Speaker 8 They also listed hitmen.

Speaker 1 Hitmen for higher websites.

Speaker 8 In this forum, one customer

Speaker 8 had asked the question if he could order a hit on himself

Speaker 8 Sorry.

Speaker 8 And make it look like an accident.

Speaker 8 Again, interesting. So, about six to eight weeks ago, my depression was probably at its worst.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 I hate to admit it, but I constantly contemplated suicide.

Speaker 1 Ron says he was trying to figure out a way to kill himself and leave his money to his girlfriend, Amanda.

Speaker 8 The best way I could protect her was

Speaker 8 to

Speaker 8 stage an accident so that she could

Speaker 1 have the life insurance have my estate, including his life insurance policy wouldn't pay out if he died by suicide. But Ron says the posts he'd seen gave him an idea.

Speaker 1 He went back on Hitman for Hiresight to order a hit against himself that would make his death look like an accident.

Speaker 8 Started an email thread with a particular hitman.

Speaker 8 We started at 10,000, but quickly they went to 26,000, and then they're

Speaker 5 he knew we'd know about dark web access, and he knew we would know about transfer of Bitcoin.

Speaker 5 And so he took that information to create a story that was, you know, potentially believable.

Speaker 1 Christian keeps pressing wrong.

Speaker 8 Were you concerned

Speaker 8 as you were scheming up this suicide plan, accident plan,

Speaker 8 that in the investigation afterwards somebody would find the document you wrote?

Speaker 8 No, I was going to do that. That would undo everything that you had orchestrated.

Speaker 8 So, yeah, I wasn't going to keep that.

Speaker 1 Christian asks about Ron's will. After all, the whole point of ordering the hit on himself is supposedly to leave the money for Amanda.

Speaker 8 Did you

Speaker 8 modify your will or your trust? What do you have?

Speaker 8 I was actually thinking about that on the pine.

Speaker 8 No, No, I haven't.

Speaker 8 Did you change your insurance beneficiaries? No, I haven't changed any.

Speaker 1 Ron hasn't changed his will or his life insurance policy to benefit Amanda if he died.

Speaker 5 If you haven't done that, committing suicide really isn't your ultimate plan.

Speaker 1 There is a world here where Ron's weird phone statement is actually a lot smarter than it might appear.

Speaker 1 It explains anything the FBI might have picked up about him being on the darknet. It also explains any payments they might have traced from him to people on the darknet.

Speaker 1 But it doesn't explain the messages outlining the plot to kidnap Jennifer. Ron has no idea of our role in this.

Speaker 1 He has no idea that we've broken into the site and passed all of the SCAR 215 messages to the FBI.

Speaker 1 For 40 minutes, the agents have been circling Ron. They've patiently listened to his story.
They've let Ron get comfortable, but they are about to ratchet up the pressure.

Speaker 8 We know your moniker is SCAR 215

Speaker 8 And we have your transcript

Speaker 8 so

Speaker 8 The document that you read is a is a great document to deflect

Speaker 8 It's a great document to explain away why

Speaker 8 The Bitcoin was transferred

Speaker 8 But it doesn't match up with the transcript. Is there any explanation for for that?

Speaker 1 Ron doesn't flinch.

Speaker 8 The only explanation I have is

Speaker 8 what I read from my phone.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 is that,

Speaker 8 again, I wasn't going to hurt anybody. The only person that

Speaker 8 was going to be hurt in my mind was going to be me.

Speaker 1 The FBI agents turn the screw. They describe the messages to him.

Speaker 8 It's not good. And it was nothing about suicide or an accident

Speaker 8 to cover up a suicide. These are assaults, these are kidnappings.
To get your wife back.

Speaker 8 I mean, I can see in your face, this is sounding very familiar because these are your words that you typed.

Speaker 8 I don't know what you're seeing in my face, but like I said, I would never want to hurt her.

Speaker 1 The small talk is all gone now. They directly confront him about Jennifer.

Speaker 8 Is she in danger?

Speaker 8 And this isn't a confession,

Speaker 8 but just a yes or no. Is she in danger?

Speaker 8 My interactions with the dark web was never meant to do anything to hurt her.

Speaker 8 I will simply say that anything

Speaker 8 that you say is my transcript, I would disagree with.

Speaker 1 Ron tells the FBI he won't say another word without his attorney. Christian decides to wrap up the interview, but he leaves Ron no room for misunderstanding.

Speaker 8 We know what happened.

Speaker 8 Not tonight, but in the future, you're likely to be arrested.

Speaker 8 We don't want to hear about the suicide plan to make it look like an accident.

Speaker 8 That's not what happened.

Speaker 8 Let's just be done, and we'll continue this once you've identified an attorney. All right.

Speaker 8 Anything else from you? No.

Speaker 8 Let me step outside here.

Speaker 1 Christian leaves to make a call. He hasn't been the only FBI agent keeping busy.
While he and Eric have been grilling Ron, another FBI team have been at Ron's house executing their search warrant.

Speaker 1 Christian wants to update them on Ron's supposed alibi and the pre-prepared statement he just read from his phone.

Speaker 8 He had a fabulous story.

Speaker 8 Oh yeah. I mean,

Speaker 8 there's holes all over it.

Speaker 1 The agents at the house have searched the property, but they need something from Ron.

Speaker 5 He said, yeah, we're about done here. There's a couple of safes that we haven't gotten into yet.
Is he willing to give us the combination?

Speaker 8 We're still searching his bags, so it'll be at least another 10 minutes or so.

Speaker 8 Sounds good. Thanks.
Bye.

Speaker 1 Christian goes back inside the interview room and asks Ron about the safes.

Speaker 8 We are executing search warrants at your residence.

Speaker 8 There's a safe in the closet near the front door. Do you mind sharing the combination with us?

Speaker 8 It's a fingerprint.

Speaker 5 He said, well, it's my fingerprint. It opens with my fingerprint.

Speaker 1 They need Ron to come down to the house and open open up the safe with his fingerprint.

Speaker 8 How do you feel about us being your Uber?

Speaker 1 Well, you're on charge with you.

Speaker 8 We can get you home faster and then you can pop those safes for us and then I think we should be done there.

Speaker 1 Together they drive through downtown Spokane. over the river that cuts through the middle of the city and out the other side into green countryside.

Speaker 1 Ron's house is set back from the road at the end of a long gravel track. It's exactly where you'd imagine a high-flying doctor might live.

Speaker 1 A large, tidy building with a three-car garage, a veranda and a fountain in the front garden. The perfect family home, apart from the swarm of FBI agents now sweeping across the entire property.

Speaker 1 Christian gets out the car and takes Ron inside.

Speaker 5 I think certainly we walked into his house and he sees all the people there and everything that's kind of, you know, all his firearms are laid out and everything's been gone through.

Speaker 5 I think that was a moment for him.

Speaker 1 Ron is led straight to the safes.

Speaker 1 One's by the front door, and one is in the master bedroom. Each one is a metal box about a foot square.

Speaker 1 Ron presses his finger to the pad on the lock. Okay.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 5 Thank you.

Speaker 5 You know, inside there was things you would expect to find in a safe. Some cash, some passport,

Speaker 5 another firearm, and then a sticky note.

Speaker 1 A small purple piece of paper with a few handwritten words.

Speaker 5 When we pulled out the sticky note, he knew he was in trouble at that point.

Speaker 1 Scrawled across the notes in a doctor's horrid penstrokes is a password, Mufasa,

Speaker 1 and a username, SCAR215.

Speaker 1 But the FBI aren't able to arrest Ron at this point.

Speaker 5 We still didn't have the communication from the dark website, and so we still didn't have evidence that we could use in court to convict him.

Speaker 1 The messages we've given them aren't enough alone to charge Ron. To prove he's guilty, they need to get the messages directly from the site.

Speaker 1 Yes, they have the SCAR215 password, but they actually need another warrant to log into the Hitman for Hire website and use it to access the kill order itself.

Speaker 1 And that will have to wait until tomorrow, when they can get a judge to sign it off.

Speaker 5 Yeah, so we left him there.

Speaker 5 We dropped the evidence back at the office and everybody went home.

Speaker 1 So Ron's alone in his house, fully aware that he's about to get caught and with just enough time to be able to do something about it.

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Speaker 1 The morning after Ron's house was searched, on April 12th, 2021, Special Agent Kristen Parker gets a phone call from one of Ron's family members who'd been trying to get hold of him.

Speaker 5 They had sent a family friend to go check on him at his house, and that's where they discovered him unconscious on the the floor and was in pretty bad shape.

Speaker 1 Ron was found unresponsive on the kitchen floor. He'd taken an overdose of Xanax pills and had a black eye.

Speaker 1 On the kitchen counter was an FBI agent's business card and a suicide note mentioning Jennifer and Amanda and asking for forgiveness.

Speaker 1 Ron was rushed to the hospital with his life hanging in the balance.

Speaker 5 He was in the intensive care unit and the doctors weren't sure that he would survive.

Speaker 1 A few days later, Special Agent Christian Parker hears news.

Speaker 5 We began to get word that he was recovering and he left the intensive care unit and was just in a regular hospital room and at that point we made the decision to post somebody outside his hospital room so that he didn't get up and walk away.

Speaker 1 For 24 hours a day, a rotating watch of FBI agents sit outside Ron's hospital room.

Speaker 1 Inside, Ron Ron calls Jennifer.

Speaker 4 He actually had the nerve to call me from the hospital after he was intubated, and I just heard the voice on the end. It sounded really scratchy because of his throat

Speaker 4 from being intubated, and it was creepy.

Speaker 4 I was angry because I felt like he was taking the easy way out.

Speaker 1 Jennifer says Ron only called to ask her to tell Amanda that he was dying.

Speaker 4 He didn't say anything about his kids. He didn't say he was sorry or anything.
I think he did it to poke at me in a way.

Speaker 4 To get under my skin.

Speaker 1 It wasn't a long conversation, though.

Speaker 4 No, I hung up on him.

Speaker 1 In the days that Ron spends recovering, the FBI get their ducks in a row.

Speaker 5 We're getting search warrants for every possible dark website that we could get access to with his login credentials. And so that really tightened things up.

Speaker 5 We can now really put him behind the keyboard in all of these communications, all of these transactions.

Speaker 5 And as he's sending tens of thousands of dollars in Bitcoin to these hitmen, we've got fantastic evidence to say that this is Ron Ilg who's doing all of this.

Speaker 1 On April 16th, Ron is arrested at the hospital and charged with attempted kidnapping.

Speaker 1 As soon as I hear the news, I call Jennifer.

Speaker 1 Well Jennifer, it's nice to see you again.

Speaker 4 Nice to see you too.

Speaker 1 Hopefully like slightly less straightened circumstances than last time certainly anyway.

Speaker 1 How are you doing?

Speaker 4 Relieved. He actually was arrested yesterday.
It's on the news so it's crazy. It's unreal.
Feels like it's fake.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 I don't know. I always hoped that the truth would come out about how he was behind closed doors, but I never expected it to be aired out, you know, for the world to hear.

Speaker 4 I haven't agreed to do any interviews with anybody else in the media just because I don't

Speaker 4 want to put myself out there right now.

Speaker 1 How dangerous do you think he would be now if he was let out?

Speaker 4 I don't know if he would, but I feel like he would probably try to get a hold of me and probably kill me and then kill himself. I don't know.

Speaker 4 That was my biggest fear is that he's going to go so nuts that he's going to want to take himself out, but he's not going to let me live, live, you know, my life.

Speaker 4 But who knows? I don't know.

Speaker 1 Jennifer, thank you. What a, what a horrendous time for you.
I'm so sorry you've had to go through all of this.

Speaker 1 I can't begin to imagine how much pain Ron has caused you.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Well, I'm just thankful for what you guys did.

Speaker 4 My dad said that he was going to send you guys a gift card to your local pub so you can have beers.

Speaker 1 That's great.

Speaker 1 We'll do everything we can to get that conviction so that hopefully you never have to spend another day worried about what Ron's going to do to you.

Speaker 4 Okay, thank you so much.

Speaker 1 When I started helping the targets on the kill list, I didn't know how. How to do it safely, how to be believed, or really how to do anything to change the circumstances I was stepping into.

Speaker 1 The team and I, we went through loads of trial and error to get the process right. And at Jennifer's case, it feels like a success.

Speaker 1 With the FBI now in the picture, suddenly we might be able to scale up our investigation. They might be able to actually competently investigate more of these cases.

Speaker 1 And they'd certainly be better placed than us to get police forces around the world to take these threats to life seriously.

Speaker 1 But they've solved just one case at this point. We've got dozens and dozens more.

Speaker 1 We've proven our information is legitimate, but we're only at the beginning of what we hope will be a constructive relationship.

Speaker 1 For now at least, the FBI seem willing to accept information from us, but that's all.

Speaker 1 So the FBI doesn't solve the biggest problem we're facing. We, this small media outfit in London, remain the only people able to access the kill orders and the payment details directly.

Speaker 1 That responsibility remains on us and it will continue until we can find a permanent solution. So I've been sat here wondering how on earth does this all end?

Speaker 1 And there's only one conclusion I can reach.

Speaker 1 We need to change focus.

Speaker 1 Rather than just dealing with the kill orders, our investigation needs to go after the dark website itself.

Speaker 1 It feels great.

Speaker 1 It feels like we're on the offense for the first time. Oh my god, I know.

Speaker 1 Imagine if this is it.

Speaker 4 Who knows?

Speaker 1 If you like kill lists, you can binge all episodes ad-free right now by joining Wandry Plus in the Wandry app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music.

Speaker 1 Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wandry.com slash survey.

Speaker 1 From Wanderer and Novel, this is episode 4 of Kill List.

Speaker 1 Kill List is hosted by me, Carl Miller. It was written by me, Caroline Thornham and Tom Wright.

Speaker 1 Our lead producer is Caroline Thornham. Our producer is Tom Wright.

Speaker 1 For Wanderey, our story editor is Chris Siegel and our senior producer is Russell Finch. Our assistant producer is Amalia Amalia Sortland and our researchers are Megan Oyinka and Lena Chang.

Speaker 1 Additional research from Chris Montero and from Anique Mossu, Fuca Postmer and Brenna Smith at Bellingcat.

Speaker 1 Additional reporting by Jonathan Glover. Fact checking by Fendor Fulton.
Our managing producers are Cherie Houston, Sarah Tobin and Charlotte Wolfe for Novel and Latter Pundia for Wanderer.

Speaker 1 Original music by Skyler Gerdeman and Martin Linebell. Music supervision by Nicholas Alexander, Max O'Brien and Caroline Thornham.
Sound design and mixing by Nicholas Alexander.

Speaker 1 Additional engineering by Daniel Kempson. For novel, Willard Foxton is Creative Director of Development.

Speaker 1 Our executive producers are Sean Glynn, Austin Mitchell, Max O'Brien and Craig Strachan for novel.

Speaker 1 Executive producers for Wandery are George Lavender, Marshall Louie and Jen Sargent.

Speaker 9 I'm Raza Jaffrey, and in the latest season of The Spy Who, we open the file on Morton Storm, the spy who lived inside Al-Qaeda.

Speaker 9 Unfulfilled with his life in a notorious Danish biker gang, Morton Storm is lost. One afternoon, he stumbles into a library looking for answers.
He finds them in the form of a book about Islam.

Speaker 9 The towering ginger-haired Dane doesn't know it yet, but that moment will hurl him into a world of radicalism and see him rise through the ranks of militant Islamist organization, Al-Qaeda, only to suffer a huge crisis of faith.

Speaker 9 He turns from devotee to spy, tasked with rooting out some of al-Qaeda's most feared generals.

Speaker 9 The CIA and MI5 bid for his allegiance as he loses himself in a life of cash-laden suitcases, double crosses, and betrayal.

Speaker 9 Follow the Spy Who on the Wondery app or wherever you listen to podcasts, or you can binge the full season of the spy who lived inside Al-Qaeda early and ad-free with Wondery Plus.