I'm Carl Miller, the host of the podcast Kill List. One night, a hacker breaks into a dark web murder for higher sight, uncovering a chilling cache of documents called The Kill List. It details hundreds of names around the globe, complete with faces, addresses, as well as payments and instructions for their murders. When a murder disguised as a suicide shakes a quiet suburb, a hacker connects a victim to The Kill List. Would local police slow act, he turns to an unsuspecting investigative journalist to help. That's me. When law enforcement decide not to investigate, our team is forced to take matters into our own hands. A decision that plunges us into a high-stakes race to warn those whose lives are in danger. It turns out convincing a total stranger that someone wants them dead is not easy. I'm about to play a clip from Kill List. Follow Kill List on the Rondri app or wherever you get your podcasts.

All right, you ready? Yeah.

It's a Thursday afternoon, and I'm on a call with one of my producers. The road outside my house is almost totally silent. On my computer, I open Chris's document.

Oh, wow. There's a lot on here. Yeah.

Chris has run me through the orders, but this is It's the first time I've got my hands on the kill list itself. It's a long spreadsheet of names, locations, telephone numbers.

How many do we have?

It looks like there's 85 on this list.

I scroll through the list. A man from the US, a woman from Russia. Alongside each name, there are contact details, workplace addresses, details of their movements, and in most cases, there are photos.

The photos are the thing that strike me first. A few dozen people staring out at you as you open this document.

In one, a middle-aged man stands surrounded by his family. His light blue eyes twinkle with a deep and joyful pride. In another, a woman tilts her head as she smiles shyly at the camera over rimless glasses. She's somewhere glipsy. She looks relaxed and happy.

The thing that's so striking about these photos is that they look like they've all been taken from social media. They look like mainly Facebook profile. So they're the ones that you decide to put on your profile picture. Yeah.

They're nice photos.

Yeah.

And it's... I mean, it's just a photo, but they all just have this... They just don't know. And this It's just looming over their head and they have no idea. Man, this is awful.

This list looks like any other Excel spreadsheets. It's innocuous, boring even, until you read the instructions listed against each There's one fucking guy, and I only have his name and the city he lives in.

How can I hire a killer to kill him? How much Bitcoin should I pay? Tell me the execution time in advance. I can't be there. I would just like this person to be shot and killed. Where, how, and what with does not bother me at all. I would just like this person dead.

These are the messages written by whoever paid to have these people assassinated. Their specifications for the hit.

Can you kidnap silent and erase without a trace?

Kill a nurse in Taipei.

I guess we don't know the backstory, but like a nurse?

I want her to be killed. It should seem she's dead because of an accident, not by murder.

Kidnapped family in Hong Kong.

Can we save 15 Bitcoin for hit with a car and ensure fatality?

Mother needs to die. Someone wants to kill their mom.

Kill an unidentified woman in Ottawa.

Kill a woman who permitted sexual abuse.

Moscow, women, 45 years old.

Jesus, man, this is terrible.

Just these are really possibly 85 really serious crimes just staring back at us. Yeah. I mean, this is a conspiracy to commit murder. Ethically, this is the hardest thing to cover that I've ever tried to do. And for sure, I mean, this is a ethical bomb waiting to blow up in our faces if we don't do this correctly.

Yeah, I don't know, man. It looks like a big Pandora's box that we're opening. Once you open it, it's open, man. I don't think we can put it shut.

The thought of what could go wrong if I meddle with this is terrifying, but so is the thought of what could happen if I do nothing. I start with the obvious step.

I'm quite nervous, honestly. I wasn't able to sleep that well. I don't know why. It suddenly makes it a lot more real. It's just a spreadsheet at the moment, and it's about to turn into crime.

I'm about to phone the police and hand over my information. Chris might have struggled with law enforcement, but I've worked with the police before in my reporting. I'm confident I can do better. After all, this is a credible threat. How hard can it be to get them to take it seriously?

All right, should I just do it then?

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