According to officials, an Air National Guardsman was detained and accused of submitting an application to be a hitman through a parody website.
According to a statement from the Middle Tennessee U.S. attorney’s office, Josiah Ernesto Garcia, 21, of Tennessee, found www.rentahitman.com while looking for contract mercenary work to help support his family.
According to the criminal complaint, the website was originally designed in 2005 to promote a cybersecurity business. After the business failed, the website started getting inquiries for hitman services. Its administrator changed it to a parody site with phony testimonials from people who claimed to have used it.
Garcia submitted identification documents, a resume, and statements through the website in February seeking employment as a hitman. He also claimed to be an expert marksman, earning the moniker “Reaper,” and saying he had been “employed in the Air National Guard since July 2021.”
In a communication with an undercover FBI agent, Garcia allegedly agreed to kill someone for $5,000. After following up with the website for nearly a month, he also provided even more identifying details, such as his home address and a headshot.
The US attorney’s office detailed how it all went down. “On Wednesday, Garcia met the undercover agent at a park in Hendersonville, Tennessee, and was provided with a target packet of a fictional individual, which included photographs and other information about the individual to be killed, and a down payment of $2,500. After agreeing to the terms of the murder arrangement, Garcia asked the agent if he needed to provide a photograph of the dead body. Garcia was then arrested by FBI agents, who, in a subsequent search of his home, recovered an AR-style rifle.”
Garcia was accused of committing a murder-for-hire scheme using interstate commerce facilities. He may face up to 10 years in prison if he is proven guilty.
The FBI’s inquiry is ongoing.
