The job posting said "freelance," and the employer was looking for a killer applicant.
A Michigan woman is behind bars and facing extradition to Northern California, where FBI agents say she advertised on Craigslist, an online bulletin board, for someone willing to kill the unsuspecting wife of a man she had begun an affair with online.
Ann Marie Linscott, 49, offered US$5,000 for the hit, had the name and work address of the woman she wanted dead and in e-mails with stunned job seekers described successful candidates as "silent assassins," according to agents and court documents.
"I've seen some screwy things, but I've personally never heard of anything like this," said Drew Parenti, special agent in charge of the Sacramento FBI office. "For a person to advertise openly for a hit man on Craigslist."
It is not the first crime ever solicited over the popular site. Craigslist has gained some level of notoriety for ads posted by prostitutes and the killing of a Minnesota woman last year who responded to an ad for a baby sitter. However, authorities and company officials say the murder-for-hire scheme appears to be the first of its kind.
Agents arrested Linscott, whom they say went by Ann Marie and used the simple alias "Marie," on Thursday at her home in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Federal prosecutors will ask a judge tomorrow to make her stand trial in California.
A call to Linscott's court-appointed public defender was not immediately returned on Saturday.
Linscott's generic "freelance" ad gave no further details about the job, authorities said.
Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster said he understood her intention was only communicated to those who e-mailed her seeking additional information about the job.
"Out of 550 million classified ads posted over 12 years, this is the first such incident that we're aware of," Buckmaster wrote in an e-mail to the press. "But again, the ad itself was generic, and we're not a party to subsequent private e-mail communications."
Linscott allegedly asked respondents to "eradicate a female living in Oroville, California," and she provided additional information on the intended victim, including her physical description, age and employment address. On two separate occasions following the November ad posting, she offered payment of US$5,000 upon completion of "the eradication task," court documents show.
Working with local Butte County authorities, the FBI identified the intended victim and her husband, Parenti said.
Parenti said the husband, whose name was not released, acknowledged meeting Linscott through an online college course over two years ago, forging an intimate relationship with her online and rendezvousing at a hotel room for two days in Reno, Nevada, in 2005. Linscott had also met him near the couple's home, about 113km north of the state capital.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS