Is the freelance professional hitman an invention of fiction?

[-Sentinel-]

You see this character in lots of films and video games: the freelance contract killer, hired by the villains to take out someone important. He typically has several aliases, will often travel far for a job, plans his murders with extreme attention to detail, and is well-paid enough to live comfortably from his contracts. When he's done, he takes his money and disappears until someone else needs an enemy killed.

I highly doubt such people even exist. In my opinion, people who commit murder for money come in two types: 1) the mob enforcer, who may kill someone for his boss but also engages in more mundane crime like racketeering, and 2) someone's loser brother-in-law, who has been in and out of prison for most of his adult life for various petty crimes and is desperate enough for his next fix of heroin to shoot someone for 2000 dollars.

Thoughts?

[Cristo Meyers]

You see this character in lots of films and video games: the freelance contract killer, hired by the villains to take out someone important. He typically has several aliases, will often travel far for a job, plans his murders with extreme attention to detail, and is well-paid enough to live comfortably from his contracts. When he's done, he takes his money and disappears until someone else needs an enemy killed.

I highly doubt such people even exist. In my opinion, people who commit murder for money come in two types: 1) the mob enforcer, who may kill someone for his boss but also engages in more mundane crime like racketeering, and 2) someone's loser brother-in-law, who has been in and out of prison for most of his adult life for various petty crimes and is desperate enough for his next fix of heroin to shoot someone for 2000 dollars.

Thoughts?

I think it's more that the particular depiction doesn't exist or is so rare that it may as well not. It's a Hollywood exaggeration of a real thing: Richard Kuklinski allegedly killed over 200 people from the 40s to the 80s, Charles Harrelson (Woody Harrelson's father) killed at least 3 including a federal judge, or Glennon Engleman who killed at least 7 while holding down a job as a dentist. None of them were attached to any one particular crime family as enforcers.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Professional assassins did exist in historical times. Many of them were hilariously inept. The majority of assassins were politically motivated or just recruited from the general military/retinue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_killing

[Florian]

In a certain sense, these people do exist.
Depending on the country, size of the military and internally formulated goals, there's no small nu,ber of people that have received very good, effective and specialized training, all the while goind through the drill to dehumanize them.
Now, what do those people do when their tour of dougy is ober or their country falls? Forget the skills they have been drilled?

What I do think is the part of making that a full-time job and living comfortably based on that is fiction.

[Traab]

Its unlikely there are any Mr and Mrs Smith style independent contract killers with their fancy gear and amazing ability, though I wouldnt be surprised if every government has a few such people in their employ. Unofficially of course. There are plenty of random monsters out there who would be willing to kill for a price, but its doubtful they would be any better at avoiding the police tracking them down than most murderous thugs.

[Forum Explorer]

I'd say the freelance part is the fictional part. The only people I can think of who regularly have the money and enemies to require assassins are crime bosses and governments.

But do/have professional assassins exist? Yeah, I'm pretty sure they do. Though they might just be called Special Forces or something along those lines.

[SaintRidley]

I'm not sure if there are any who make it their career, but the kind who freely take tips from friends putting other people in contact with them and looking to make a hit? Yeah, those exist. My grandfather's life was apparently worth $2,500 to the woman who put a hit out on him.

[Dienekes]

You see this character in lots of films and video games: the freelance contract killer, hired by the villains to take out someone important. He typically has several aliases, will often travel far for a job, plans his murders with extreme attention to detail, and is well-paid enough to live comfortably from his contracts. When he's done, he takes his money and disappears until someone else needs an enemy killed.

I highly doubt such people even exist. In my opinion, people who commit murder for money come in two types: 1) the mob enforcer, who may kill someone for his boss but also engages in more mundane crime like racketeering, and 2) someone's loser brother-in-law, who has been in and out of prison for most of his adult life for various petty crimes and is desperate enough for his next fix of heroin to shoot someone for 2000 dollars.

Thoughts?

The top description actually comes very close to describing Richard Kuklinski. Though admittedly, Kuklinski started as an enforcer, to pay off a debt to the Gambino Crime Family. However, by the end of his career he became freelance for anyone willing to pay (though I believe they were all mob related contracts) before starting his own crime ring. He didn't last long as a crime leader though, I think only about 5 years, while he was a successful contract killer for about 20.

There's also, supposedly, Igor the Assassin.

[Cristo Meyers]

However, by the end of his career he became freelance for anyone willing to pay (though I believe they were all mob related contracts)

Hey, you gotta go where the jobs are.

In all seriousness, I do imagine that the reason there's so much overlap between mob figures and hitmen is because your average person just doesn't have the resources/contacts/money to get much more than some dude with a gun and loose morals. All the demand for people like Kuklinski just isn't coming from random people, even in fiction it's usually a major crime boss that's doing the hiring.


There's also, supposedly, Igor the Assassin.

Or Alexander Solonik. He could be taken right out of the pages of a spy novel, really: all the way down to the Italian villas.

[Dienekes]

Or Alexander Solonik. He could be taken right out of the pages of a spy novel, really: all the way down to the Italian villas.

I did not know of him until you posted this, but just looking him up and wow. He could easily be a Bond villain. I'm actually pretty impressed, in a morally abhorrent kind of way.

[Ruslan]

I highly doubt such people even exist.That's what they want you to think.

[Yora]

I think a big factor is that these people have offices or you could look up their number in a phone book. You need to already know them and know how to find them, and they surely don't take jobs from random strangers. And in that case they need to be part of a local crime community of loosely affiliated groups, even if they are not in full time employment with a single boss.

[Douglas]

I think a big factor is that these people have offices or you could look up their number in a phone book. You need to already know them and know how to find them, and they surely don't take jobs from random strangers. And in that case they need to be part of a local crime community of loosely affiliated groups, even if they are not in full time employment with a single boss.
Yeah, if anyone like this were easy for any random schmoe to contact, law enforcement would use that to track them down and take them permanently out of business. They'd have to limit themselves to taking jobs only from friends, friendly organizations, people vouched for by those friends, and maybe a convoluted access route with multiple cutouts for strangers.

With all that in mind, I'm not sure there's enough demand for such services in the modern world to support a dedicated professional. I'm sure there was in the past, but general trends seem to be towards less violence as time passes.

[BRC]

I think the key word is "freelance". While criminal organizations certainly have people killed, it seems that the deed is normally done by a member of the organization in question, rather than hiring some untrustworthy outsider. Large criminal organizations usually already have people who are willing to perform acts of violence, and know how to avoid being arrested. As much as we like the idea of the crime boss calling in some suave assassin to kill a rival, mostly they probably have people within the organization who carry out a variety of other duties.

[Poll Comics]

The top description actually comes very close to describing Richard Kuklinski. Though admittedly, Kuklinski started as an enforcer, to pay off a debt to the Gambino Crime Family. However, by the end of his career he became freelance for anyone willing to pay (though I believe they were all mob related contracts) before starting his own crime ring. He didn't last long as a crime leader though, I think only about 5 years, while he was a successful contract killer for about 20.


Yeah... it sounds like that answers the basic problem. You wouldn't be able to go freelance without having a network, and likely the only way to develop that network would be to start internally as a member of an organization. As others have pointed out, though... even if you did that, you'd likely still be closely tied to the affiliates of the organization (i.e. all or most of Kuklinski's contracts being mob related).

It's fun to speculate on how a person might be an exception to this rule, though. They'd need to be in a position where they wouldn't necessarily need the protection that comes from affiliation with their patron(s) and where they'd have enough of a network to vet and get in contact with potential clients.


2) someone's loser brother-in-law, who has been in and out of prison for most of his adult life for various petty crimes and is desperate enough for his next fix of heroin to shoot someone for 2000 dollars.There's a pretty good movie called 'The Living', directed by Jack Bryan, that touches on this. Bonus points: one of the lead actors is Fran Franz (most recognizable from Joss Whedon's 'Dollhouse'). The movie handles a lot of issues talked about in this thread and does it in a way that feels grounded.