Altar boy, baseball ump, professor-to-be – Schwall is the last person you’d expect to hire a hit man. But like so many ills, contract murder is migrating from the world of gangs and the mob to suburbia. This week, a Florida law student will be arraigned for allegedly trying to rub out a school secretary who, the student reportedly feared, was about to expose her for cheating. Last year, a Texas mother paid $3,000 to bump off the 18-year-old who broke her daughter’s heart. A California woman even hired a hit man to kill the hit man she hired to kill her husband.
Contract killing among the middle class is still rare, but Louis Mizell Jr., acrime analyst, has tracked 1,043 such plots since 1988. And more than 20 states have used officers asundercover hit men. Eighthave recently toughened laws against contract murder. In Illinois, Schwall – who has pleaded not guilty – faces up to 40 years in prison.
Suburbanites in the murderer market seem to watch too much TV. They’re fond of whispering lines like ““I know you’ve got people behind you,’’ says Bill Davis, an undercover investigator in the Orange County, Calif., sheriff’soffice. Most contract killings don’t involve business, drugs or money. Mizell estimates that 60 percent of suburban hits begin at home – disgruntled spouses, lovers or kids. And enlisting a hit man isn’t hard. Some prowl local bars for ““the construction-worker type,’’ says John Mainello of the New York State Police. Others ask friends for leads. Few contact the mob or Soldier of Fortune magazine (though a California woman in her 70s did call the magazine when she wanted to bump off her 80-year-old boyfriend, who she feared would dump her; the editors called the FBI).
Middle-class customers also demand personal service. In Miami last year, Amelio Navarro, 70, allegedly insisted on a photo of his dead wife before he’d pay $1,000. The police set up a sting, including hiring a movie makeup artist to make the wife look as if she’d had her throat slit. ““I just can’t believe he would want to kill me,’’ Esmarcia Navarro, 35, said after her husband’s arrest (he pleaded not guilty). ““He was so nice when we first met. Such a gentleman.’’ Or so he seemed.
