An 18-year-old woman has been arrested and facing charges after she was accused of trying to hire a hit man this week to kill her 3-year-old son, New York Post reported. According to the police, the woman used the website RentAHitman.com and requested a hitman to kill her 3-year-old before the end of the week.
However, she didn't realize that the site was a parody. As per the report, the woman submitted pictures of her little boy and the exact location he was going to be.
Operators of the parody website reached out to police to report that the woman had contacted them to arrange a murder-for-hire for the young child. Cops then traced the IP of the computer that was used to make the request with the website and it was the same one listed by the woman who made the request, the police report says.
An investigator posing as the hitman then contacted the woman who confirmed the request and agreed to pay $3,000 for the murder. The police later went to her house and arrested her.
She has been charged with first-degree solicitation of murder and third-degree using a communications device for unlawful use, court documents show. She is being held on a $15,000 bond and was ordered to stay away from her child. Family members told NBC6 the toddler is safe and with relatives.
Her motive for killing her son has not been revealed.
In a similar incident, a 17-year-old girl in Iowa's Storm Lake was arrested last month after she allegedly attempted to hire an online "hitman" to kill a 7-year-old child.
'Rent-a-Hitman' is a parody site, featuring fake testimonials, a request form, and even a job application for aspiring hitmen. According to police, the website founder created the online site to catch and curb those looking to hire a killer. The owner of the parody website told People last year he routinely hands over suspicious requests to local police.
''There's a lot of beneficial information that can be shared to tell adults and children that the internet is certainly not a safe place. There are bad people out there,'' Bob Innes, the owner of RentAHitman.com told People.
