A woman has pleaded guilty to trying to hire a hitman online to kill her ex-husband.
Wendy Lynn Wein from Michigan, US, accessed a fake website called Rent A Hitman last year, using a fake name but real personal identifying information to request the service.
The website owner had created it as a class project in 2005 and reported Wendy's request to the police.
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Rent A Hitman creator Bob Innes told FOX 2: "She was asked those two questions: Do you still require our services? And would you like me to put you in contact with a field operative?
"She answered 'yes'."
Michigan State Police arranged a meeting with Wendy pretending to be the site's owner following Bob's report.
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An undercover officer met her in a café and she told him she wanted to have her ex-husband murdered.
Wendy then gave the detective her ex's home address, work address and work schedule.
She promised to pay a suspiciously cheap $5,000 for the murder-for-hire service.
At a second meeting with the undercover officer, Wendy provided $200 as a down payment.
A Michigan State Police Lieutenant Brian Oleksyk said: "I can't believe someone would think that there would be a website they could go to and do this."
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Wein was charged with solicitation of murder and using a computer to commit a crime.
She pleaded guilty to both charges this Friday (12 November) and will receive a sentence with a nine year prison-term cap on 13 January 2022.
This kind of scenario is more common than you might think, according to rentahitman.com's creator Bob.
He said: "These people are seeking how to hire a hitman on the internet.
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"Rentahitman.com has prevented 141 murders so far.
"That includes potential school shootings, child abductions, and your run-of-the-mill murder for hire."
Bob revisited the site to check the inbox two years after making it back in 2005.
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Bob said: "I go back into the inbox to check the emails and I'm just shocked.
"There's 250 or 300 emails from people around the world seeking 'asset extraction'.
"I never would have seen this coming."
Words: Charlie Metcalfe