On March 3, 1993, a sister would discover a horrible scene no family member should come upon. It would take two and a half years for Lawrence Horn and the hit man he hired to be brought to justice. During that time, investigators had to unravel a complicated trail of conspiracy and how one book aided the shooter in trying to get away with murder.
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TuneInLocation
This episode occurs in Silver Spring, Maryland located in Montgomery County near Washington D.C. It is named after a mica-flecked spring discovered in 1840. Micas are a group of minerals that are used in make-up foundations or fillers in cement and asphalt. In the mid-1950s, Francis Preston Blair, who played a role in helping to organize the American Republican Party, established a plantation in Silver Spring to escape the hot Washington D.C. summers.
Director Rain Johnson of Knives Out, actor Dan Futterman from The Birdcage, and actress Crystal Chappell of Guiding Light and Days of Our Lives all hail from Silver Springs.
Discovery
On March 3, 1993, Vivian Rice stopped by her sister’s house around 7:15 am as she did most days on her way to work. Vivian’s sister was forty-three-year-old Mildred Horn who went by Millie. The sisters only lived about a block-and-a-half away from one another in the upscale Layhill neighborhood. What surprised Vivian upon her arrival was that Millie’s garage door was up, and her minivan was gone. Millie worked as a senior flight attendant for American Airlines. She had a flight to Puerto Rico scheduled for that morning out of Dulles Airport. Vivian had stopped by to check on Trevor Horn, Millie’s eight-year-old disabled son who required round-the-clock nursing care.
Vivian was immediately alarmed when she saw that the garage door was up. She also could see the entry from the garage was also open. When she exited her vehicle she could hear Trevor’s apnea monitor alarm bell going off. The alarm would only sound when there is no breathing going into the machine.
Vivian quickly got back in her car and drove home. She asked Trevor’s twin sister, who had spent the night with her to call 911. Then she asked a neighbor to go with her back to Millie’s house. They arrived before the police and tried to enter the front door. It wouldn’t open all the way because something was blocking it. When Vivian looked inside she found her sister lying on the floor having been shot in the face.
Gruesome Scene
When police arrived on the scene a short time later they found the bodies of Mildred, Trevor, and his nurse, thirty-eight-year-old, Janice Saunders. Millie was found right inside the front doorway. Trevor was in his hospital bed on the first floor, and Janice on the floor of Trevor’s room. Autopsies showed that Millie had been shot in the face three times including once in the left eye. Janice was shot in the head twice with one shot through her left eye. Her knitting needles lay nearby. She was working on a quilt for her four-year-old son. Trevor had suffocated after his breathing tube was disconnected.
The house looked to have been ransacked but had more of an air of being staged. Only a few items were missing including credit cards out of Millie’s purse and her minivan. What was more curious was what was left including a five-carat diamond tennis bracelet in Millie’s bathroom, stereo equipment, and Janice’s jewelry and purse.
Police surmised that whoever committed these murders had entered the home through the basement window or a set of French doors on the first floor at the back of the home on the first floor. Crime scene units scoured the scene, but there seemed to be little evidence to collect. Blood found at the scene matched the victims and there were no fingerprints or fibers to collect. The only thing out of place was a long metal file in the yard. The scene had the markings of a professional hit
Suspect
As in most cases, those closest to the victim are looked at first either to rule in or out as a suspect. Millie’s ex-husband and Trevor’s father were looked at even though he was 3,000 miles away in Los Angeles California.
Lawrence Thomas “L.T.” Horn and Mildred Maree had met during a first-class flight to Los Angeles in 1972. The couple had a whirlwind romance with Lawrence winning and dining with Mille. Lawrence at the time worked for Motown Records as a record producer and chief recording engineer. He had been in the Navy. There he was a disc jockey on the aircraft carrier, Lake Champlain, before his discharge in December 1962. Upon returning to his hometown of Detroit his mother introduced him to a friend who was looking to start a record company. That friend was Berry Gordy. Horn was hired for $50 a week as a technician for the skills he picked up while in the Navy.
Horn’s career took off and money, fancy clothes, and a nice house followed. During his time with Motown, Lawrence Horn worked with Motown legends Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, The Supremes, and The Temptations. He is even credited with producing The Temptations hit My Girl which spent thirteen weeks on the charts in early 1965. Horn married a Motown receptionist in 1965, but the couple dissolved their marriage a year later.
Horn and Millie married in August 1973 while on a trip to Las Vegas. The couple would resettle in Los Angeles. By this time Horn had left Motown to work as an independent producer, but would rejoin the company in 1983.
Millie
Millie Maree was born on November 11, 1949, in Walterboro South Carolina. She was one of fourteen children. One of her sisters reported that when Millie was young she dreamed of becoming a flight attendant. That’s just what she did working her way through the ranks to senior status at the time of her death. Millie had a gift of making people feel comfortable and cared for which was a perfect fit for her job.
Rocky
The couple’s marriage is stated as being rocky from the start with frequent separations. Lawrence Horn stated in an interview after the murders that his marriage to Millie was more of “a lark, not a love thing…it was a distraction. It was fun.” That fun resulted in a daughter in 1974, who at the time of the murders was a freshman at Howard University. By 1979, Millie and her daughter relocated to the Washington D.C. area to be closer to Millie’s relatives who helped her raise her daughter.
While finalizing divorce proceedings Millie found out she was pregnant with twins in 1984. Trevor and his twin sister were born on August 8, 1984. The twins would be born 12 weeks premature with Trevor having to stay in the hospital for three months due to his underdeveloped lungs. In September 1985, Trevor experienced what officials call an “accident” while in Children’s Hospital National Medical Center in Washington D.C.
Medical Malpractice
This accident resulted in severe brain damage when Trevor’s breathing tube dislodged. Hospital personnel didn’t reconnect it until 90 minutes later. He would require round-the-clock care and his prognosis wasn’t good with Trevor now paralyzed and virtually blind and deaf.
This was the final straw for the Horn marriage and their divorce was finalized in 1987. The couple shared joint custody of their children, but they remained primarily with Millie, and Horn was ordered to pay $650 a month of child support.
In 1988, the Horns filed a malpractice suit against the hospital. It resulted in a $2.3 million settlement in addition to $322,359 paid out to Millie and $125,000 paid to Horn. Lawrence Horn rarely saw Trevor telling his older daughter at one point that Trevor could never be a real son to him because of his physical and mental disabilities. He didn’t see the twins for over two years. Although Horn didn’t seem to have a problem accepting the hospital payout.
In the spring of 1990, Millie used her part of the settlement to buy a home in the Layhill section of Silver Springs. The remaining settlement money was placed in a trust that should Trevor pass the money would then be paid out to his parents. What Lawrence Horn did with his share isn’t known, but the money soon ran out, especially after Motown Records was sold to MCA and Horn was laid off.
Fired
In 1988, Gordy sold Motown Records to MCA, and Horn was laid off. Horn stayed on for a time as a tape librarian, but his high salary was no more. Now he was bringing in about $28,000 a year and that only lasted until 1990 when he was fired. The reason for his firing is unknown, but Horn did state in an interview it was due to politics.
Trevor or as his family referred to him “Tricky Trevor” or “Little Trooper” defied the odds and not only survived by improving. He regained some of his eyesight and could say a few words. Although hooked up to a respirator he could crawl on his stomach and pick up light objects. He even attended the Stephen Knolls School in Kennington. This is a public school that services disabled students.
By 1992, Lawrence Horn was in desperate financial straits, even borrowing money from his mother to stay afloat. He was also in the rears on his child support. Three months before the murders he was ordered to pay $18,000.
Informed
Silver Springs authorities reached out to the Los Angels Police Department to assist in notifying Lawrence Horn of the murders. Horn was tracked down at his mother’s house and when told his reply was a bit shocking; “am I a suspect.” Horn was taken to the police station for further questioning although he wasn’t very cooperative. However, his live-in girlfriend did supply an alibi. Authorities not believing Horn committed the murders himself felt that he could have hired someone so they contacted the FBI for assistance. If Horn had hired someone who then traveled across state lines to commit the murders this is a violation of the interstate travel and racketeering statute which allows the FBI to become involved.
Missing Items
In the days after the murders, Millie’s handicap-accessible minivan was found not far from her residence. When processed no viable evidence could be found. The day after the murders a jogger found Millie’s missing credit cards on the side of the road and notified authorities. Police would end up sending a canine unit to the place the cards were found several weeks later and in continuing their search they found a badly corroded gun part. This was sent off to the FBI lab for testing where it was determined to be the trigger mechanism for an AR-7 rifle. The serial number had been drilled out.
Questioning
Millie’s oldest daughter was questioned by police and had agreed to take a polygraph exam which she passed. She would go on to tell authorities that in the summer of 1992, she had a conversation with her father in which he asked her to videotape the outside of Millie’s home and Trevor’s bedroom. She only agreed to tape Trevor’s room. Then two days before the murders on March 1st, Lawrence Horn called her wanting to know where his youngest daughter would be over the next few days. As was their custom whenever Millie flew out early in the morning, her youngest would stay with Aunt Vivian.
The Horn’s oldest daughter would also tell authorities that on the night of the murders she had accidentally dialed her mother instead of her boyfriend’s number around 2:30 am. This helped nail down the timeline. Janice Saunders’s last log entry was made at 2 am. Entries are to be made every hour. The time of death authorities felt was between 2:30 and 3:00 am on March 3rd.
Search Is On
On March 11th, detectives from Silver Springs, Maryland flew to Los Angeles. They were able to secure a search warrant for Horn’s apartment. Once issued they collected hundreds of audio-video tapes, computers, personal papers, address books, bank statements, and telephone logs. Several items of interest were found. One was handwritten notes on the hospital settlement. To authorities, this showed that Lawrence Horn knew exactly what he would inherit upon his son’s death.
The second item of interest was a hand-drawn map of Milley’s neighborhood with the streets outlined and labeled, as well as an “X” on Milley’s home. Detectives also found what they deemed the “alibi tape.” This videotape showed Horn standing in front of this television set with the tv guide station showing the time (11:45 pm) and date (March 3rd) California time.
Another Piece of the Puzzle
In searching through Horn’s various audiotapes authorities came upon a twenty-two-second conversation between Lawrence Horn and an unknown male. The words were cryptic, but to authorities the meaning was clear. Here is part of that conversation.
Unknown Male: Are you able to talk?
Horn: No
Unknown Male:
Okay, all right. So, I mean, I’m sitting there can you, uh…..I could take a picture of him.
You know, right, you know right…there but I couldn’t
The noise – you understand what I’m saying?
I wasn’t able to do the others. Didn’t, I didn’t want to go, uh, front-wise
To detectives, the unknown male was the killer letting Horn know that he was unable to take photographic proof due to being unsettled by the alarms going off on Trevor’s breathing machine.
Suspect
With the help of the FBI, detectives subpoenaed telephone records from AT&T for all the calls placed to Horn’s apartment one week prior and one week after the murders. In all, four long-distance calls stood out. Two coming from a pay phone in Detroit, Michigan, and two on March 3rd from payphones near Milley’s house. One of the payphones was located outside a Denny’s Restaurant and the other outside of Days Inn that came in at 5:12 am Maryland time.
In searching the Days Inn Hotel registration from around the time of the murder one registration seemed to stick out. On the night of March 3rd at midnight, a man had checked in paying all cash. The night clerk requested a driver’s license even with the cash payment. The name on the license was James Edward Perry from Detroit Michigan.
In a background search on James Perry authorities found that he had served ten years in prison for shooting a Michigan State Police Trooper after an attempted robbery in the early 1970s. Perry had since been paroled and now claimed to be a minister who could pick out winning lottery numbers. He called himself “Apostle James” which he had printed on business cards and flyers.
Here were the connections authorities were looking for. Lawrence Horn was from Detroit and Perry was from the same city and had been in Maryland near the murders for only a short period. Now all they had to do was cement this connection for an arrest warrant.
Telephone Records
Detectives and FBI Agents also took a closer look at Horn’s telephone records, specifically the ones made on a calling card. Not used so much today, but back then calling cards usually were purchased to make long-distance and international calls. Once again authorities had to subpoena records and through this search, they found out the name on the calling card Horn had used was Camilla McKinney.
When FBI agents went to the address associated with the calling card they found Marsha Webb who turned out to be Horn’s cousin. She told the FBI that Horn asked her to buy the calling card claiming he needed it for business. Webb had made up the name to purchase the card as she thought she would be denied due to past payment problems.
Detectives and agents realized that the use of the calling card and payphones created a complex web of calls that had begun almost a year before the murders and continued for several months afterward.
Plotting
Next, detectives and agents started the long arduous process of unraveling this complicated web of communication. They started by plotting out a grid of payphones in Los Angeles and Detroit that was within walking distance of Horn’s and Perry’s residences. They were able to connect some calls going from Perry’s residence on the east side of Detroit to Horn’s apartment in Hollywood.
Authorities decided to place 24-hour surveillance on Perry in September 1993. This was a joint project with the Michigan State Police and the FBI. Through their efforts, they were able to ascertain that Perry hung out with one particular guy by the name of Thomas Turner. Who is Thomas Turner? Well, he is a cousin of Lawrence Horn.
Turner and Perry had been in prison together years before. Turner had been inside for robbing a bank. Detectives and agents knew that this was the break in the case they had been looking for. This was the connection between Perry and Horn.
Tickling the Wires
Agents decided to “tickle the wires” on Perry. Tickling the wires is when law enforcement approaches a suspect and asks them questions related to the offense they are investigating in the hopes that they’ll reach out to their co-conspirators. Agents approached Perry who admitted that he had been in Maryland on March 3rd, but he claimed he had been there on business and knew nothing about the murders.
However, agents didn’t get what they were hoping for as their wiretaps of Horn’s phone showed no contact between Horn and Perry after November 1993. That is when they started taping Turner’s phone and found that he was acting as a go-between between the two men. The FBI and detectives went back to going over phone records of the suspects and surveillance, but nothing was coming quickly.
Moving
It was from their wiretaps on Perry that they found out that he was planning on moving. Agents got a warrant to search his residence before he left and possibly destroyed evidence. An FBI SWAT team made entry into Perry’s residence surprising both him and his girlfriend. Recovered in the search were various bank statements and videotapes. They also found items that seemed to be out of place for a so-called minister. They found voodoo relics, soldier of fortune magazines, books on criminal investigations, and managing gunshot wounds.
Two books stood out above the rest and that were “Hit Man: A Technical Manual for Independent Contractors” and “How to Make Disposable Silencers.”
Hit Man
In reading the Hit Man book agents discovered several key points that seemed to match up to the murders. The book had recommended that a hit man should park a distance away from the scene. Investigators believed that was the reason Milley’s van was taken and left not far from her home. Perry had used it to get back to his rental car. The book also suggested making the hit look like burglary by messing up the residence and taking some items then discarding them along a roadside. Once again, this could be the reason the credit cards and part of the murder weapon were found on the side of the road.
The book also recommended the hit man take a narrow file and run it through the barrel of the rifle. This also explained why a narrow file was found in the yard that had gunshot residue on it. The book also recommended using an AR-7 Rifle with .22 caliber ammunition. The same ammunition that was used to murder Milley, Janice, and Trevor.
Grand Jury
In January 1994, a grand jury subpoenaed Thomas Turner who agreed to talk with a grant of immunity. Turner testified that in May 1992, Lawrence Horn had come to Detroit for a cousin’s birthday party. Turner said before May he hadn’t seen Horn for close to twenty years. Horn immediately started complaining of trouble he was having with his ex-wife and child support payments. Turner gave him the name of James Perry as someone who may be able to help him out. That is all Turner would say, but investigators felt he know a lot more.
On July 19, 1994, Lawrence Horn was placed under arrest in Los Angeles for the murders of Mildred Horn, Trevor Horn, and Janice Saunders. He refused to cooperate. Meanwhile, FBI agents were waiting for a judge to sign off on the arrest warrant for James Perry in Detroit. Not wanting him to flee but also wanting to let him know that they were watching him, agents started initiating overt surveillance on him.
This frustrated Perry so much that after picking up a friend Perry drove directly to the FBI field office to file a complaint. Calling it fate or perfect timing, but when Perry arrived the agents had the signed arrest warrant in hand. Perry demanded to see Special Agent Roach asking him if he was going to be arrested or just harassed. Perry was told arrested on three counts of first-degree murder.
Payoff
One question investigators had was how did Lawrence Horn pay Perry off? Horn had filed court papers for his claim to the $1.7 million trust fund but was stopped when Vivian Rice, Milley’s sister filed a civil suit to block Horn’s claim. Investigators got their answer two months after searching Perry’s home. In a photograph taken that night Western Union receipts were shown addressed to Perry’s girlfriend. Looking further into these transactions they discovered that there were a number of them between George Shaw and Perry’s girlfriend.
Who was George Shaw? George Shaw turned out to be Lawrence Horn who had gotten the name from an obituary that ran in July 1992. Shaw’s obituary was right beside the obituary of Motown singer Mary Wells. The address on the Western Union wire transfer was 2562 Sunset Blvd. the same address as Motown’s office building. No one by the name of George Shaw worked there.
By the Book
In presenting evidence at Perry’s trial prosecutors told the jury that he had used the Hit Man book as a guide on how to get away with murder. They pointed out that he had built a homemade silencer, dressed in a brown mechanics suit to look like a repair man. On the day of the murder, he drove a car rented by Turner from Detroit and rented a room at the Days Inn, which was close to Milley’s house.
Perry paid cash for the room like the book suggested hoping the hotel clerk would not ask for identification, but he did. It was that simple act of doing one’s job that cracked the case for investigators. It placed Perry in Silver Springs the day and close to the time of the murders and was a major mistake for Perry.
Perry drove his rental car to a nearby shopping center and walked the rest of the way to Milley’s house with the hand-drawn map that Horn provided. Trevor’s nurse, Janice, had made her entry into the log book at 2 am. This was to be done at the top of every hour.
Looks Like a Burglary
Perry entered the home through the back of the house. He likely shot Janice first once to the head and then the eye. The shot to the eye was a recommendation from the book. Perry then removed Trevor’s breathing tub which caused the alarms to go off awakening Milley. When she got to the bottom of the stairs Perry met her shooting her in the face three times.
Perry then began to mess up the home to make it look like a burglary and took Milley’s credit cards and keys but left other more expensive items behind. With the alarms unnerving him Perry took off leaving the metal file in the yard after running it through the barrel. He then took the minivan back to his car and along the way threw out the credit cards and broken down gun parts.
His other mistake was then calling Lawrence Horn from a payphone beside the Days Inn after the murders and then again at 6 am from Denny’s Restaurant in Gaithersburg.
Justice
In September 1995, after two-and-a-half years of investigation, James Perry was found guilty on three counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to death by lethal injection. His sentence was vacated after he appealed his conviction and a new trial. He was found guilty at his second trial in 2001 and sentenced to three life terms to be served in a Maryland State Prison. James Perry died of an undisclosed illness on December 30, 2009. He only served fourteen years. He never admitted his guilt
Another person who never admitted his guilt was Lawrence Horn. His trial took place in April 1996. After a five-week trial, he would be found guilty on three counts of first-degree murder and one count of a murder conspiracy. He was sentenced to three life sentences without the possibility of parole. He passed away after serving twenty-one years in February 2017.
Publisher Punished
In 1997, the families of the murder victims sued Paladin Press for publishing the Hit Man book that they felt was a blueprint that allowed James Perry to kill their loved ones. The steps Perry took to commit the murders had over two dozen similarities as the book recommended. A week before the start of the trial in May 1999, Paladin Press settled out of court agreeing to stop publication of Hit Man, and paid a multi-million dollar settlement to both the Horn and Saunders families.
Interview
On April 15, 1993, just weeks after the murder of his ex-wife, child, and his nurse, Lawrence Horn gave a five-hour interview to reporters. He repeatedly denied having anything to do with their deaths saying, “For me to do that, I would be dead now. I would not be living on because what would be the purpose? I would be a monster.”
No truer words.
This episode sponsored by Manscaped.
Resources
- Silver Spring, Maryland – Wikipedia.
- Hired Gun | FULL EPISODE | The FBI Files
- PERRY v. STATE | 150 Md. App. 403
- Lawrence Horn – Wikipedia
- Horn Convicted for Three Murders
- Lawrence Horn | Murderpedia, the encyclopedia of murderers
- Who was Lawrence T. Horn? ID’s Shattered revisits triple murder by Motown producer
- Mildred Elizabeth “Millie” Maree Horn (1949-1993) – Find a Grave Memorial