0:06

A woman recently asked how I

0:09

could hear good conscious when

0:11

an instruction book or murder. Some

0:14

of this you can figure it out without a book, and you

0:16

couldn't. Some of it is bordering on you

0:18

know what, do we really want to tell people this because it's

0:21

I feel no responsibility. I

0:24

have no ethical responsibility for

0:26

the misuse of information. You

0:28

know, how do you go after a book? I

0:30

don't care what it says. This ship

0:33

cannot be protected by the First Amendment.

0:36

There will be always someone who

0:39

is agreed by the content

0:41

of someone's speech. The

0:44

books published are very unlikely

0:47

to be the cause of

0:49

criminal conduct, murder, mayhem.

0:52

When have you? She

0:58

was saying, if something ever happened is to me, it's

1:01

Lawrence Horne. And we laughed

1:03

about it. We're like Millie, he's crazy,

1:05

but he's not that crazy. He

1:08

was with Halic. She was in Montgomery County Police

1:10

and the FBI, and he called Lawrence

1:13

right in front of you. At

1:15

the time that you married Willie Murray,

1:18

did you love her? No?

1:27

After several years

1:29

or or decades, the families

1:31

that deal with this type of horndous trauma

1:34

are constantly dealing with the

1:36

fallout. It never goes

1:39

away. I

1:45

first thought this was a podcast about a book, a

1:48

murder manual for want to be Hitman. I

1:51

mean it is, But the very

1:53

first phone call I made when I started reporting

1:56

was to Tiffany Horn, Lawrence and Millie's

1:58

oldest daughter. Over

2:00

the last fifteen years of making radio, I find

2:02

most people want to be heard, They

2:04

want to know their story matters, and they just like

2:06

to know they'll be remembered. But

2:09

when I first spoke with Tiffany, she

2:11

was immediately hesitant. Actually

2:13

hesitant doesn't do her reaction justice. When

2:16

I started to explain that I'd want the experience

2:18

to be meaningful for her, she just thought

2:20

I was being patronizing. This

2:23

was a woman who's been through hell and some

2:25

days is still there. She

2:27

had to want to do this, and she had to

2:29

know I wasn't going to burn her like other journalists

2:31

had. She told me she was once on

2:33

a talk show and they surprised her by inviting

2:36

a hit man on stage. Can

2:38

you imagine. So in

2:40

our last episode, I want to talk about

2:42

a dynamic that's right at the core of many

2:44

true crime podcasts, the

2:46

one between the journalist and a survivor.

2:52

It's a relationship filled with all these unexamined

2:54

obligations and limitations and expectations.

2:57

It's a balancing act. Over

3:00

of course of the last two years getting

3:02

to know Tiffany and learning how to speak to her, how

3:04

best to listen. This process

3:06

informed every step along the way, and

3:09

We've come a very long way from where

3:11

we started. I'm

3:31

Jasmine Morris from My Heart Radio and hit

3:33

Home Media. This is hit Man.

3:53

Tiffany and I had months of phone conversations

3:55

before we first met in two thousand eighteen. We'd

3:58

try to meet, but plans would fall through, and

4:00

when we finally nailed down a date, I immediately

4:02

booked a flight to d C, got a hotel room

4:04

near Tiffany's home, and waited for her there.

4:07

I was excited to finally meet her, to be able

4:09

to sit down across from her, look

4:12

her in the eye, and have a conversation. After

4:15

all the recording equipment was set up, the furniture

4:17

rearranged, she called to say she wasn't

4:19

going to make it. She was having car troubles.

4:23

I could tell she was unsure, wondering

4:25

if this was all even worth it, But

4:27

she did eventually show up, so

4:30

Tiffy and let's just start with you saying

4:32

your name and like who you are

4:34

in relation to this story?

4:38

Like who are you? I mean,

4:40

I don't know. I just feel like

4:43

I'm myself. So that's hard. Do you see what I'm

4:45

saying? Yeah, totally. I'd just like to know how

4:47

people see themselves within. Yeah,

4:50

that's the thing. I have different facets

4:52

and yeah, it's kind

4:54

of the perfect example of how our relationship

4:56

evolved. I'd ask a question, she'd

4:59

question it, but we'd eventually find our way.

5:02

Why are you sitting here with me today?

5:06

I did do this podcast because I felt

5:08

like there were some things that I've never

5:10

had a chance to talk about, and I can't have these

5:12

conversations really with anyone.

5:15

One of the things she's told me over and over

5:18

is how lonely it is to be her. I

5:20

think that's why Tiffany ultimately did talk

5:22

to me. She hadn't had anyone listened before,

5:25

really listen. Pushed through her

5:27

apprehension. Anxiety and grief

5:29

sometimes disguised as anger. You become

5:32

almost like a pariah, and

5:34

and it's too painful for people to want to deal

5:36

with. So even if you were the victim,

5:39

you kind of become ostracized

5:41

and on the outside of just

5:43

society in some ways. But even after

5:46

Tiffany agreed to talk to me, she let

5:48

me in a little and then pull away. At

5:51

one point, after one of our interviews, I was

5:53

walking her to her car and she seemed

5:55

nervous. She then stopped

5:57

me in the parking garage, turned to me and

5:59

said, I have to ask you something, point

6:02

blank, so direct, and then

6:04

she asked me if I was related to the author

6:06

of hit Man. I was

6:08

taken it back. It sounds far

6:10

fetched until you think about the manipulation

6:13

she's experienced in her life, mostly

6:15

at the hands of her own father, Lawrence Horn,

6:18

the man behind so many of Motown's greatest

6:20

hits, who also engineered

6:22

a hit on his own family. My

6:25

kids have a joke and they say, I think everyone's

6:27

a psychopath, and

6:29

that has to do with your experiences with your dad. Yeah,

6:34

the gift that keeps giving. Try

6:40

to remember everything that happened around the murders,

6:44

like when detectives believe Lawrence was trying to

6:46

scout his ex wife's house he wasn't

6:48

allowed in, and he was asking which room

6:50

Trevor slept in, which

6:54

one

6:59

of right up there. Even

7:03

the night before the murders, he called

7:05

Tiffany trying to get information

7:07

on where her mom and sister would be. He

7:09

put this on his own daughter, and it's

7:12

a lot to carry. I had been so terrified

7:14

of that man that he would

7:16

come after me, even in ways like

7:18

maybe hiring someone to pretend

7:21

to be a boyfriend. I mean, I had fantasies like

7:23

this, So it was really hard

7:25

for me to trust a lot of people. And if

7:27

I felt that they did anything weird around

7:30

my family, I was I was done with

7:32

them because I just I

7:34

didn't know how far he would go. In

7:41

the years after the murders, Tiffany

7:43

really struggled. There's times

7:45

that I've been just at

7:47

the end of my robe. I wouldn't

7:50

say suicidal, but there were times when

7:52

I was really close to it, especially

7:54

like two years

7:56

ago, like it was bad. Having

7:58

my kids saved me. They were my angels. They

8:01

made my life so fulfilling

8:04

even with all the pain. Tiffany

8:06

tries every day to rise above what's happened

8:08

to her. But despite all the trauma she's

8:10

endured, this did not break

8:12

her, and this next story proves

8:14

that in the spring of two

8:17

thousand twelve, sixteen years

8:19

after Lawrence Horn had been convicted, Tiffany

8:22

discovered that her dad had been transferred to a maximum

8:24

security prison five minutes away

8:26

from her house in Maryland. She'd

8:29

driven by this prison so many times

8:31

and wondered if he was there. One

8:33

day, a family friend who ministered at the prison confirmed

8:36

her hunch. Tiffany

8:38

doesn't trust people, but she does seem

8:40

to trust the universe. She looks

8:42

for cues and acts on them.

8:45

So I felt like that was a sign. I

8:48

was like, Okay, I'm gonna have to go up there. After

8:50

stalling for two years, she

8:52

finally made that five minute drive. I

8:54

sat in the parking lot and just like, can

8:57

I do this? Do I really have the

8:59

strength to do this? And I felt like, you know what, you're

9:01

here, It's not an accident

9:03

that this is so close to your home. She

9:06

sat there for what she says felt like an eternity.

9:09

Then she pulled herself out of her seat, walked

9:12

into the facility and tried to find

9:14

her dad. There

9:16

were so many demons and so many things

9:18

that I had been battling, so much rage

9:21

that had been building inside me. It was important

9:23

for me to to let that go and

9:25

to face him. I wanted to really

9:29

settle with him and look him in his

9:31

eye and also just see my dad

9:33

again, like I wanted to be that little girl

9:35

that I used to be and just look at him that

9:37

way instead of as this monster. Tiffany

9:41

speaks so highly of her father. Back then,

9:43

he told her how to listen to music, they'd go to

9:45

movies together and take ski trips. And

9:48

She's not the only one who remembers Lawrence this way.

9:50

Everyone I spoke with who worked with him at Motown

9:53

describe him as this charismatic, funny,

9:55

quiet and kind man. It's

9:57

hard to see him as the same person. So

10:00

as Tiffany was telling me this story, I

10:03

was at first in awe of her. I mean, the

10:05

amount of courage it must have taken it

10:07

is just astounding. Second,

10:09

I was hoping the story would end with some sense

10:11

of closure for her. She'd

10:14

worked with a restorative justice and reconciliation

10:16

program in Maryland, also known as Victim of

10:18

Fender Dialogue, and had the support of a therapist,

10:21

but when she visited him this time, she

10:23

was going to be alone with him. There

10:26

were no therapists, no counselors. It

10:28

was just the two of them, like the old days.

10:31

He was still in a wheelchair. He looked even

10:33

worse. His glasses were

10:35

askewed. I think he had like tape on

10:37

his glasses. I mean, it just it broke

10:39

my heart. Lawrence

10:42

was sick, he'd been battling cancer. A

10:45

flood of empathy washed over me, and

10:47

I just I felt bad for him. I did.

10:51

I felt instantaneously. It's like,

10:53

wow, this is awful, you know, and

10:56

this is really what it comes down to. This is

11:00

this is what happened to you because of the choices

11:02

you made and you didn't have to go down that

11:04

road. But instead of feeling like satisfaction,

11:07

I felt horrible. I

11:10

really wanted to talk to him

11:12

in a kind and gentle way, like

11:14

I wasn't coming at him aggressively or

11:16

angry. That wasn't what I

11:18

was there for. I just said,

11:20

you know, I want you to know I forgive you.

11:23

You told him that you forgave him. Yeah,

11:25

did he like? He teared

11:27

up a little bit. He did. We

11:30

had some moments. One of the

11:32

first things he said was that he owed

11:34

me a debt, and a lot of it seemed like rambling,

11:37

but I think that

11:39

was kind of his way of admitting that

11:42

he had taken something from me

11:44

and my sister. There was hope

11:46

for a few minutes in the Hollywood

11:49

version of this story. Maybe Lawrence

11:51

gets emotional, Maybe he finally owns

11:53

up to the pain he's caused. Maybe the unconditional

11:55

love of a daughter proves overwhelming

11:58

even for him. But this is

12:00

in Hollywood. It's a prison in Maryland.

12:04

He went into the manipulations

12:06

and the denials, and he said

12:09

things that he knew would be hurtful. I

12:11

think he made a dig at my mother to like everyone

12:13

thought she was so beautiful, but I didn't think that

12:16

it was awful, and I just I was like,

12:18

this is just a sick man. And he

12:20

maintained his innocence until he died,

12:22

right, And he really couldn't

12:24

believe that I believe that he did it. And

12:27

he even said to me, how could you think I'd do that to

12:29

your brother. While

12:34

Lawrence didn't give Tiffany what I hoped he'd

12:36

give her, she did come away with something.

12:39

I also had to be honest with myself

12:42

about who this man was, and

12:44

that the man of my childhood, the

12:46

father of my childhood. You

12:49

know, this larger than life character. This

12:51

superhero maybe never

12:53

even existed. It

12:55

must be so complicated also loving someone

12:58

who could do something like that. But

13:00

it's taught me a lot about love, that you

13:02

can love people even if they've hurt you.

13:05

It actually makes you the better person

13:08

because you're loving unconditionally.

13:15

Lawrence Horn died a few years later in

13:18

two thousand seventeen while serving his

13:20

sentence in just a prison.

13:24

But even with her father's death, despite

13:26

her many attempts to connect with him beforehand,

13:29

this is just one part of Tiffany's story that

13:32

will never be resolved. It's

13:34

just not that easy. We'll

13:37

be right back resolution.

13:56

That's what this is all about, right In a

13:58

lot of true crime story endings are satisfying,

14:01

almost to a fault. The investigation

14:04

wraps up, the bad guys caught, justice

14:06

has served, the end things

14:08

are resolved. Over

14:11

the last two years, Tiffany has shared

14:13

so much and been so vulnerable

14:15

with me, So I found myself wanting

14:17

to sort of honor her with this podcast. I

14:20

interviewed and got back in touch with lots of people

14:22

from her past, those who had a hand in the murder

14:24

investigations, her dad's former

14:26

motown colleagues, lawyers who fought

14:28

alongside her family. I even answered

14:31

this unanswerable question of who wrote

14:33

the book that started all of this, And

14:35

at the same time, I was constantly

14:37

hoping for resolution in a situation

14:39

that just can't be resolved. Tiffany's

14:42

stories, her traumas, there's

14:44

no end to them.

14:49

Tiffany's grief is still so present

14:51

in her life, and certain months

14:53

are really hard for her. March is

14:55

always tough, the month her brother and mother were

14:58

killed. November brings her mom's birthday.

15:01

In our first phone call, I told Tiffany that

15:03

I didn't want this podcast to be about Lawrence

15:06

Horn. I wanted it to be about

15:08

the people he heard. Tiffany

15:10

was eighteen years old at the time of the murders. When

15:12

we started talking, she was forty three,

15:15

the same age her mom was when she

15:17

was killed. I'm actually forty

15:19

four, and the fact that I'm this

15:22

age is because I outlived

15:24

my mom. On my birthday,

15:26

I kind of had a moment where I felt

15:28

like, Wow, I'm here.

15:31

I'm literally like older than

15:33

my mother ever was. Tiffany

15:36

and I talked a lot about her mom. I

15:38

really wanted to get to know Millie through Tiffany and her

15:40

stories and to bring her to life a little

15:42

bit in this podcast. And one of

15:44

the things I learned along the way was that Tiffany's

15:47

relationship with her mom wasn't simple either.

15:50

Tiffany says she has a strong personality

15:52

like her mom Millie did, so they'd often

15:54

butt heads when she was a teenager. We

15:57

were starting to understand each other more as I got

15:59

old her. You know, I had gone to college.

16:02

She was proud of her daughter, her firstborn.

16:04

They'd just begun to get close again right

16:07

around the time Milly was murdered, which

16:09

makes this next story even more heartbreaking.

16:13

I was a college student, so we would be up

16:15

really late at night. I think it was probably one

16:18

in the morning. The boy that I

16:20

was dating at the time, we were on the phone

16:23

and we got into a huge fight, so he hung

16:25

up on me. Everybody would be

16:27

on a speed dial that you talked

16:29

to all the time. This was the big thing in

16:33

but I mistakenly touched the

16:35

number that would speed down my mother because

16:38

it was dark. I was crying. I was upset. This

16:41

was March second, the

16:44

night Millie was killed. So I

16:46

called my mom accidentally and I don't realize

16:48

until she answers the phone in a like a really

16:50

groggy, sleepy voice, but also with concern.

16:53

And so I told her, I'm sorry, like, I

16:55

didn't mean to call you. I got in a fight with

16:58

the guy was dating. And she's like, oh, I'm

17:00

sorry, you know, but it

17:02

will be okay. And I'm like, well, go back

17:04

to bed. I know you have to get up for work in a

17:06

few hours. I'm sorry. I feel

17:08

bad for calling you, and she was really nice

17:10

about it, um and hung up the

17:12

phone. Tiffany

17:15

was the last person to speak with her mom

17:18

because this phone call happened within

17:20

an hour or so of the murders. I

17:23

sometimes used to wonder was he already

17:25

in the house, Like when I called,

17:27

was he in the house already? I

17:30

mean, it's it's just it's

17:32

awful and it's nightmare inducing. And

17:34

I used to think, God, I wish I could have

17:36

done something, But what could

17:39

I have done? This

17:42

was really hard for Tiffany to talk about. It

17:45

didn't even come up until our final interview, and

17:48

it was the only time during many of our interviews

17:50

where she got emotional. It

17:53

was clear this memory still haunts

17:55

her. There's also something else that

17:57

kind of eats away at her. It's been to

17:59

a five years and my sister and I have not

18:02

been able to organize scattering

18:04

her ashes. I've actually carried my ashes

18:06

with me to every place I've lived

18:08

in the last twenty five years. In

18:11

the summer of after the

18:13

Children's hospital settlement, Milly decided

18:16

to take a trip to St. Martin and she brought

18:18

her family with her, and so it was kind

18:20

of like a girl's trip for her

18:22

sisters and their daughters, only it was all

18:24

women. You know. We had a great

18:26

time. It was like three or four days on this island.

18:29

They would shop and my mom treated

18:31

herself to tennis bracelet, and she felt kind of

18:33

guilty about it, and I remember saying, no,

18:36

you deserve it because she had gone through

18:38

all those years of you know, the court

18:40

case, which is you children's hospital,

18:43

just caring for my brother. I

18:45

felt like she deserved it. Tiffany

18:48

still has that tennis bracelet. And

18:50

while it didn't seem like it at first, this

18:52

trip ended up being far more important than

18:54

Tiffany or her aunt's even realized there

18:57

was. At one point we were there and I think she just

19:00

felt really at peace and she said, if

19:02

I was to ever die, I want you to

19:05

bring my ashes back here because I

19:07

love this place. She was

19:09

very intentional about that, that's what she

19:12

wanted, and my sister was really

19:14

young at the time, as she even remembers her saying

19:16

that. Last

19:19

year, Tiffany told me she'd like to go back to St.

19:21

Martin and fulfill her mother's wishes.

19:24

It had been twenty five years since her mother's

19:26

death and it just felt right. A

19:29

few months later, she called me and said she happened

19:31

to be looking up plane tickets and found one that was

19:34

pretty cheap. She wanted to recreate

19:36

that girl's trip her mother planned and

19:38

booked two tickets, one for herself

19:41

and one for her daughter, Maria. I

19:44

was excited for Tiffany well, I knew it would be

19:46

better sweet. This felt like a moment where

19:48

maybe she could find some resolution, something

19:51

could come to an end, And so we sent them

19:53

with a microphone to document the trip, and

19:56

then the night they were scheduled to fly out my

19:58

phone rang I could tell him immediately

20:00

something was wrong. Tiffany

20:02

had tried to open her mother's urn and

20:05

realized it was sealed shut. There

20:07

was no way she could get it open. She

20:10

had been kind of ambivalent about doing this all along,

20:13

wondering if she wanted to or even could do

20:15

it, so she took this as another

20:17

sign she wasn't ready,

20:19

but I told her she should still go show

20:22

Maria the island sco about a spot for

20:24

when the time is right. So

20:26

they went and they retraced Tiffany's steps

20:28

with her mom or she bought that tennis bracelet.

20:31

They went to the beach and Maria got to learn

20:33

some new things about her grandmother. And

20:36

then on their last day there, this

20:39

is pretty I

20:41

think this might be a

20:43

nice place for us to do it. Yeah,

20:47

I think this is a good spot. Tiffany

20:53

and Maria also recorded on the car ride home

20:55

from the airport, and when I listened

20:57

to this after she sent me the recordings,

21:00

it sounded almost like a eulogy for her

21:02

mom, a memorial. Twenty

21:04

five years later, I realized life

21:07

is fleeting, and it's important

21:09

to do what makes

21:11

you happy, what really makes

21:13

your family happy. Just being

21:16

a single mother of three kids, it is hard, but

21:18

having a special needs sin and then she

21:21

was able to take some time to

21:23

enjoy herself. She didn't care what people thought

21:26

and That's what I kind of lived my life by,

21:28

like, I don't care what people

21:30

think, because you can't get that time back

21:35

and nough. Tiffany never got to know her mother as an adult.

21:39

There's so much that she absorbed as a kid.

21:41

She's applying to her life now. She's

21:44

a person who really enjoys life, traveling,

21:46

spending time with her family, and building her career.

21:50

Most of our phone conversations involve a lot

21:52

of laughter. One

21:56

of my favorite scriptures is Isaiah sixty

21:58

one three and they Sickly. It says

22:01

God gives us beauty for ashes, and

22:04

I honestly feel like the

22:06

ashes of my family

22:09

being ruined that my dad created. My

22:11

sister and I were able to take those ashes

22:13

and create something beautiful. And we're still

22:15

creating something beautiful to

22:18

honor our brother and our mom.

22:20

In one of our earlier episodes, I told

22:22

you I'd called Tiffany to let her know we were focusing

22:25

on her brother, Trevor, and she told

22:27

me, I put my love for him in this box

22:29

in my heart, and I don't open it often

22:32

because it's too painful. I

22:35

mean, a hit man broke into their quiet

22:37

home in the middle of the night, and smothered

22:39

an eight year old child. It's

22:42

really the unthinkable. I could never quite

22:44

capture the full horror of what happened to him.

22:47

But this was Tiffany's reality, this

22:50

was her family, and even though it's

22:52

so hard for her, she insisted,

22:54

he deserves to be seen. He deserves

22:57

to be remembered. I

22:59

do tell people that have losses, and it doesn't

23:01

really matter how the loss happened. The loss is.

23:03

The loss is. You're going

23:05

to always grieve the these people that

23:07

you love. It's a process. I

23:09

grieve sometimes really hard some days,

23:12

even all these years later, years

23:14

later. I just want people to know that's okay,

23:16

Like there's not a time limit. There

23:19

isn't. I don't think I'll ever stop grieving

23:22

my mom and my brother never,

23:25

but you can remember

23:28

the love that they gave you and just try

23:30

to maybe turn that around to you

23:33

pouring love into the ones that are with you right

23:35

there. You hope you'll see them again,

23:37

but you also have their presence, Like my mom

23:40

comes to me in dreams. I have dreams

23:42

also about my brother. You know.

23:44

I see things and my kids that remind me of

23:46

both of them, and those are

23:48

great things. One

23:53

of the things Tiffany told me while making this podcast

23:56

was that she wanted to inspire other women,

23:58

especially Black women, who have gone through horrific

24:01

trauma and are struggling. She

24:03

said, there's a light at the end of the tunnel

24:06

and God has more in store for us. Tiffany

24:09

wants to give hope to people, something

24:11

she didn't have twenty six years ago. Maybe

24:15

that's the opposite of hit Man, a book

24:17

that taught people how to hurt people, And

24:20

maybe that is a kind of resolution. After

24:24

all, she's shared her story, all

24:26

of it with you, millions of people.

24:29

Maybe that means she doesn't have to hold it all by herself

24:32

anymore. At least that's my

24:34

hope. All of this stuff

24:36

that's lived in her head for so long can

24:38

now live here in this podcast,

24:41

allowing her to set it down for just

24:43

a minute.

25:00

Yeah. Hitman

25:20

is a production of I Heart Radio and hit Home

25:22

Media that's produced and reported by me Jasmine

25:25

Morris. Our supervising producer is

25:27

Michelle Lance. Mark Lotto is our story

25:29

consultant. Executive producers, our

25:31

main guest at Tikor and me. Mixing

25:33

by Michelle Lance and Josh Ferguson. Our

25:36

fact checker is now sumi Ajisaka.

25:38

Special thanks to Tristan McNeil, Andrew

25:41

Goldberg, Michael Garofolo, Kendall Waldman

25:43

and Nathan Morris, and to Michael Blend,

25:46

Will Pearson, Jerry Rowland, connal

25:48

Byrne and Chuck Bryant Her Believing in

25:50

the show our theme song by Alice McCoy

25:52

in. Additional music written and produced by

25:54

the students at DIME, powered by the

25:57

Detroit Institute of Music Education

26:00

to time